


Can't Feel You

by Mutant_Toad



Category: B.P.R.D., Hellboy (Comics)
Genre: Astral Projection, Cannibalism, F/M, Ghost Sex, Nazis, Occult, Other, Possession, Strip Tease, War on Frogs, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-07
Updated: 2017-02-08
Packaged: 2018-01-14 22:30:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 30,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1281166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mutant_Toad/pseuds/Mutant_Toad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Johann Kraus is the newest member of the B.P.R.D.s Enhanced Talent agents. The agency has moved from their coastal, city location to their base in the Colorado Mountains.</p>
<p>The newest agent is trying his best to fit in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've had friends read this over and they ask me why I spell 'Kraus' only with one s instead of two. Johann clearly states in the second film that it is two. 
> 
> Well, that might be so, but in the comics, it's only spelled with one.
> 
> The Johann in this story is based on his history and personality from the B.P.R.D. comics, not the film.

“We’re glad to have you here Mr. Kraus,” Kate said with a small smile, “Director Manning has told me a bit about you and your skills.”

“It is a pleasure to meet you as vell, Dr. Corrigan, but please call me Johann.”

“And you can call me, Kate. Let me help you,” she took a few steps up the airplane ladder and held one of her hands out.

“Not necessary, but thank you. I can see just fine,” the metal plating on the bottom of his shoes clunked loudly as he stepped out into the sunlight. He saw the snowcap mountains near by, but he couldn’t feel the cold. The snow wasn’t the only reason he knew of the cool temperatures. There was also the rosey, soft, and plump cheeks of the lovely doctor in front of him. Johann had always had a liking for women of her standing. Intelligent and beautiful. 

There was also the girl standing by the car. She was bundled up in a grey jacket with a fur lined hood. Her gloved hands were rubbing together in front of her face. She stood out from the others on the plane and Kate. The color of her face was like warmed toffee. The bits of her hair that he could see were pitch black and it was cut short like Kate’s. Johann was hardly an expert on hairstyles, but he liked it. Her dark brown eyes looked nice against the snowy backdrop and over the red gloves she was trying to warm with her breath.

He turned his attention back to Kate, “I hope my appearance isn’t too unsettling.”

“Trust me, Johann, I’ve seen stranger,” she laughed a little as she led him back to the car, “You’re going to need to be more than ectoplasm in a bag to make me look twice,” she smiled.

“Hello, Mr. Kraus. I’m Haldisa Schwarz,” the toffee skinned girl introduced herself.

German. He hadn’t expected that, “Please, call me, Johann. Vee’re going to be vorking together, ja? Your name, it means Spirit of the Black Stone, ja?”

“Some. I work in the artifacts room. I report to Kate for many things. And yes. My father was a German immigrant after the war. It was quite the scandal for my family,” she smiled.

“I can imagine.”

“Why don’t we move this back to the base?” Kate hinted and shooed them both into the car.

“I thought the B.P.R.D. base vas near New York?” he asked as they drove along the bumpy, icy path that lead up the mountain. They were stopped no less than five times and made to show identification to pass through.

“It was, but this is a bigger base and we’re much better equipped here,” the blond doctor explained.

“Better bedrooms too. My last one was like a closet,” Haldisa said with a small snicker, not that it was too far from the truth, “I can actually lift my arms up without hitting the bottom of the bunk above me.”

“So vee share rooms?” he turned to look at her and noticed the way she was looking at him. It was like she was inspecting something, but it wasn’t him, “Can I help you vith something?”

Her cheeks turns a little red and bit her lower lip, “Just checking my lipstick in your glass. Sorry.”

“No mind,” he said lightly, If having a young voman check her makeup in my face vas the strangest thing to happen to me, I vould not be here. By the vay, you have some on your teeth.”

“Thank you,” she smiled before lifting her hand up to rub at her teeth a little.

“So, vhat are they others like?”

“I don’t like to gossip, Johann, but I can say tell you what I think of them. Abraham is very smart and a good leader. Liz is very strong and very kind. Roger is very sweet. And Captain Daimio is...a hard ass. You won’t see much of Liz though. She’s taking some personal time right now.”

“Vhat of Hellboy?”

The two women looked at eachother for a moment and Kate decided to take that one, “He’s a good man when he wants to be, but you won’t be meeting him. He left the bureau a while ago. We expect him back eventually, but not any time soon. Everyone needs time to soul search.”

“I understand that. Though I have a shorter travel than most,” Kate didn’t laugh, but Haldisa did, “At least someone finds my humor entertaining.”

“I’m easily entertained,” she admitted.

“I think that’s enough chatter for now. We’re almost there,” Kate commented and the other girl nodded lightly. 

The compound was built into the side of the mountains. Only one road in and one road out. There was a helicopter pad as well, but that was only for missions and emergencies. The metal worked well to reflect the sunlight and snow to make it difficult to see from the mountain base and from overhead. It housed several hundred B.P.R.D. agents, as well as artifacts and even a few captured creatures. Shifts for non-live-in residents were six months on and six months off. 

“Mein gott. It’s larger than I vas expecting.”

“Welcome to the big leagues, Johann,” Haldisa teased as she climbed out of the car.

“Hal, can you show Johann to his room and then down to the conference room to meet the others?”

“Of course, follow me, Ghost Man,” she said with a smile.

“Please, just Johann, I’m not fond of nicknames.”

“I’ll remember that, but you might want to grow a thick skin about it. Some of the guys here like nicknames, whether you like them or not.”

“I do not think it possible for me to grow skin again, but I vill remember that as vell.”

“So, when do we get to hear about you?” she asked as she lead him through the corridors. Various people in both uniforms and lab coats passed by them. No one seemed phased by the walking body bag with limbs and a light bulb shaped head.

“I believe you all have my file…”

“Yeah, but those things are the dull parts. All it said was that you were a medium, lost your body, and now you’re here. There’s always more to it than that,” she pulled her gloves off and stuffed them into her jacket pockets before unzipping it to show the grey, standard t-shirt under it, “Were you trying to contact some ancient warlord or something? Or maybe you were trying to find a lost lover?”

“You’ve been here a vhile, haven’t you?”

“What makes you say that?” she turned, walking backwards and watching him.

“Because it does not seem like you care for the feelings of those you are speaking to. Did it ever occur to you that I might be uncomfortable vith sharing that sort of information so soon vith someone unfamiliar?”

Haldisa stopped and looked down at her feet for a moment, “I’m sorry, Johann. You’re right. I’ve been with the B.R.P.D. since I was a child. My father worked closely with several occult scientists in Germany. When he came to the states, he met my mother running the local occult bookstore three towns over. The B.P.R.D. used his knowledge to help round up the various things that Germany had been working on. I was born right here on this base. My mother worked in the artifacts department till her passing three years ago. So yeah, I’m a little jaded about new people. I’ve seen a lot here. I work hard, I do my job well, but I stay in the background. I’m no field agent, so again, I’m sorry. I’m sure when you’re ready to talk about it, you will. Whether it’s with me or someone else. I tend to hear more through the grapevine.”

“I thought you did not like gossip?”

“I don’t, but that doesn’t mean people won’t talk anyway,” she smiled, “Apology accepted?”

“Yes.”

She eyed him for a moment, “It’s hard to tell if you’re being sincere or not, but I’ll take it,” she smiled again, “Anyway, right around this corner,” she lead him on and pushed open a door, “It’s not great, but it’s not bad,” it was a plain room. Bare walls, a desk with a chair and a lamp, and a bare bed.

“You mentioned bunk beds?”

“Yeah, us grunts share rooms. Special talent field agents get their own rooms. After all, you all are the ones that are staying here full time.”

“Do you not?”

“Yeah, but only because I don’t take my vacation time. Glutton for punishment,” she smiled. Johann kind of liked her smile. It was warm. It had been far too long since he had been around beautiful women. A doctor and an artifact expert. He also knew of Liz Sherman, a powerful pyrokinetic, and he was sure she would be beautiful as well. Such was the nature of these things. To spend his days surrounded by women who would have never looked at him in life and would depend on him as some sort of tool in his half-life, “My room is last on the left. I’ll be in there for a little bit. Let me know when you’re settled and I’ll show you to the conference room.”

“No need to wait. I have no reason to settle. I do not sleep and the desk will be sufficient once I actually have files to put on it.”

“A simple man. I like that, but you might feel differently once you’ve been here a while. You should personalize. Anyway, follow me. Let’s go introduce you to the others.”

“I doubt that, but thank you.”


	2. Chapter 2

There was a rustling of papers as she knocked on the door. It took him a minute to call out, “It’s open!”

She smiled softly as she cracked the door open and poked her head in. Despite his assurances before now about not needing a bed, he was sitting on the edge of it. She saw a magazine poking out from under the mattress and could tell there were more under it. It was like a teenage boy trying to hide his dirty magazines from his mother. People talked around here. After all, there wasn’t much else to do. She’d heard a few of the guys talk about how the ‘Gas Man’ liked to look at girly magazines. How he would take over watch shifts for them if they bought the magazines for him, since he didn’t like going to town the way he was.

“Hey, Kate has been trying to reach you on your cell for thirty minutes. Abraham got a strange visit from Liz. She burnt his room to a crisp,” Hal wondered how he enjoyed the magazines he tried so hard to hide. He had no body and no nerve endings, so it wasn’t as if he could ‘feel’ aroused. At least not physically. Would mentally be enough for someone? She wasn’t the most sexually active woman in the world, but even she had urges. She wasn’t sure if just sitting there looking at a magazine would be enough.

She wasn’t even sure if just mentally looking would be enough. No warmth in her belly. No sweat on her brow. No blood rushes. No hazy vision. No feel of a hand, her’s or anothers, touching her body. No feelings at all. Hal didn’t think she could handle it.

“Burned his room? How did she accomplish that?”

“Not sure, but Kate wants you, Abe, and Roger with a team right away. Kate has Liz’s last location. A monastery in Europe. Really old place. We don’t have much information on it in the files,” she started to fill him in on the details, “What do you know about Liz Sherman?”

“Not much, I’m afraid. Remember, she vas already on leave vhen I arrived. I know of her abilities and I know that Roger vould not be alive if it vas not for her.”

“Basically. Liz has been a ward of the bureau since she was young. Her powers haven’t always been in her control and sometimes they still aren’t. She killed thirty-two people when she was a child. It was Hellboy that helped her come out of her shell and convinced the bureau to let her leave the compound. Before that, it was nothing but fires constantly. She gave that spark to Roger when they found him, but it nearly killed her. She can’t live without her power.”

“That is incredible. Is she in distress?”

“We are assuming so. She told Abe to find her and help her before setting his room on fire.”

“Amazing,” he mused and she smirked, “I’m afraid my lack of training will impair the mission.”

Hal chuckled, “What training?”

“There you are!” Kate shouted across the helipad, “I’ve been calling you forever! We’re moving out!”

“I’m sorry, Kate. I’m not used to those phones yet. I think I have it stuck on vibrate,” to which Hal snickered a little, “Vhat?”

“Nothing.”

“Johann, get in here!” Abe called out from the plane. The blue fishman seemed more shaken than Hal was used to seeing him, “We need to get to Liz!”

“Ich komme!” he shouted as his formless, clunky body started to jog towards the ladder.

“Hey, Johann!” Hal called out to him, “Bring me something back! Like a rock or something!” she liked having things to study, “And bring Liz back to us too!”

“Ich verspreche. Nur für Sie!”

She smiled, “Just so you know. I do speak German!” she was sure if he had eyes, they would have gone wide. The sudden stop and posture of his body told her he was surprised, “Remember, Johann, my father was a Nazi!”

“Johann!” Abe snapped again and the ectoplasmic man shook his glass bulb head and ran his way into the plane.

Haldisa headed back inside as the plane took off. Sometimes she wished she worked in the field, but she knew her father would never allow it. Like everyone else that worked most of their lives here, she had secrets of her own. When she’d expressed interest in joining, her father had made sure that it was in her contract that she was never to see a bit of field work. She knew she could go if she really wanted to, but it was best not to stir up trouble when she could avoid it.

“Hey, think I can get a pass to go to town?” she asked the clerk.

The guys shrugged a little behind the desk, “We ain’t on lockdown. Go for it. Business or pleasure?”

“Family,” she said with a smile as they tossed her a set of keys for a jeep, “If anyone asks, I’ll be back by ten.”

“Have fun,” they waved her off as she zipped her jacket up tight. 

Getting off the mountain was just as trying as it was to get up it. Even going down, there were clearance and identification checks. Most of the men knew her. She’d been here longer than most of them. Not many could say they were born on a secret military compound. She’d been raised running up and down the halls of that compound. Her father had taught her how to shoot and her mother taught her how to study.

The nearest town to the compound was a run down one. A place where people didn’t ask questions and the local bar with the least watered down booze was the place to be on a Friday night, mostly because there was no where else to go. A few trailer houses, a handful of rundown houses, a lot of booze, cheap smokes, and a bunch of people with nothing better to do than to eat, smoke, drink, and fuck.

She pulled up to one of the run down houses and proceeded to drag over a thick, heavy chain that was attached to a pole in the trash covered yard. The noise from her chaining the jeep to the pole was enough to cause someone to peek out of the door with a gun in hand, “Wer ist da?! Steigen Sie meines Hauses!”

“It’s me, Kasper. Remember what Father used to say, you use English now. Mother would roll in her grave if she found out that you were shouting at strangers in German,” she smiled as she dusted her hands off and started towards the door.

The man in the door resembled Hal a bit. The same toffee colored skin and dark hair. Unlike her eyes, his were dull and listless, but the color was the same. Dark circles made his eyes look sunken. He was obviously in poor health as just holding the door open and the gun at the same time seemed to strain him, “Mother cannot roll in a grave if she is not in it.”

“True enough. Oh, Kasper,” she stepped close to him and took on the burden of the door holding before reaching out to touch his cold cheek, “You’ve not been eating enough.”

“We cannot all get meals handed to us,” he poked her stomach with the barrel of the gun, “You have been eating too much.”

“Don’t pull that on me. We have more than enough money for you to walk down to the store and buy yourself something to eat. I get cafeteria food. Don’t act like some kind of martyr. Remember, dad used to eat the same things I am. We all can’t be as holy as you, now can we, Kasper,” she pushed him aside gently to step inside, “My god, you haven’t lifted a finger to clean this place since I was last here. What did I tell you?”

“I have been busy,” he hissed as he closed and locked the door. The room was dark and there was a stale, cold smell about the whole place. Piles of litter and trash were spread out everywhere. She had to climb over a pile of clothing to get through the living room and into the kitchen.

“You’re lucky the bureau doesn’t spy on our families so long as we don’t make trouble. They’d have this place quarantined in a heartbeat,” Hal threatened.

“I would take enough of them out before they got in here…” he growled as he followed her.

“Tut-tut, Kasper. The B.P.R.D. has been good to our family. They gave dad a job despite his background. They gave mom a job. And they have even given me one. If you weren’t such a stick in the mud, you could work there too. It’s good to keep them close. Remember what he always says, hiding in plain sight is the easiest.”

“You play too close to fire.”

“Like I said, stick in the mud,” she teased and shook her head as she held her hand out, “Give me the key. I’ll go down by myself.”

“He doesn’t know you are coming. You know he does not like it when you show up like this,” but he didn’t hesitate to fish out a padlock key from his pocket and hand it over to her.

Hal shrugged, “He can deal with it,” with that, she unlocked a door next to the stove and headed down the dark stairs, “Make us some tea, Kasper,” she called out.

“Ja, Haldisa.”

***

Hal was navigating her way back up the mountain when she caught sight of her hands on the steering wheel in the dark, “Ugh, I can never it all off in the first wash,” she groaned and pulled off to the side of the road before the first checkpoint.

She climbed out of the military jeep and scooped up a handful of the snow. She held it for a moment till it started to melt from the heat of her hands before scrubbing it against her fingertips. She did this for about five minutes before shaking her now frozen hands off, “That’s better,” Hal muttered to herself before kicking the red speckled snow away with her boot before climbing back into the jeep.

“I hope Johann is back,” the woman mused softly as she came up on the first checkpoint, “Any word from Kate’s team?” she asked the men as they ran her identification.

“Nothing yet. Then again, they don’t tell us anything down here. That’s all on you guys up there.”

“Right, right. See you guys later,” she waved them off and continued her drive.

Once the keys were returned and she was signed back in, she headed to Johann’s room. Last report they got from Kate said that they arrived at the Monastery. Abe, Roger, Johann, and a few of the other men had gone down into some hole in the ground following a lead for Liz’s location. Kate had stated that they lost radio contact with the group less than an hour ago. She said that her next report would be either that they were coming home or that they needed a second team.

She cracked his door open and peeked in before actually going in. She lifted the edge of the mattress and smirked at the magazines. They weren’t full nudity magazines. They were more softcore. Mostly ones with girls in pretty bras and panties. Nothing too trashy. Kind of like looking at a Victoria Secret catalog.

“Miss. Schwarz?” she snapped around at the calling of her name, “We need you in the artifacts room.”

“Right. Sorry. Just wanted to leave Mr. Kraus a book I picked up in town,” she set the wrapped package down on the bed before heading for the door, “Lead the way.”


	3. Chapter 3

Liz was back. The circumstances under which she had to be recovered spread through the compound like a wild fire. It was rare for anything to really happen here, so it was all gossip and rumors. After all, many of the people here spent six months doing nothing but staring at the underside of a bunk or trying not to fall asleep on guard duty at one of the checkpoints. Everyone knew who Liz was, so everyone wanted to know what happened to her.

Haldisa was no exception, but she didn’t like gossip. She knew that Johann was part of the recovery team. He would have seen everything. As ‘wrong’ as it was, he was the new one in the group. That made him the weak link for information. It was also ‘wrong’ of her to try to bait him too, but that hadn’t stopped her from leaving those books in his room. Wrapped inside of the bag she’d left on his bed was two books. The first was just a book about the history of the area. The second was a magazine she’d picked up from the local gas station. Nothing too racy, but along the lines of the ones he already had. 

There was also a note stating who the books were from and that he could come talk to her if he wanted to when he got back.

Sadly, this didn’t seem to work in her favor. The team had been back for nearly a week and she was sure Johann was avoiding her. For a bit, she wondered if the magazine had been a mistake. Perhaps it was just a little too pushy. After all, Johann wasn’t a young man. He might have liked looking at panty clad women, but he was born in the late forties. He probably preferred more reserved women. If that was the case, then she might have blown it.

Only one way to find out, she supposed.

Hal knocked on his door and waited for a moment before saying anything, “Johann, are you in there?” she asked softly to the door before starting to turn the knob. 

“Hal,” her name was called out with a bit of surprise to the voice and she whipped around to see the ectoplasm man coming up the hallway, “V-vhat are you doing?”

“Oh, uh, well...I was coming to talk to you. I haven’t seen you since you got back from that temple with Liz,” she smiled and clasped her hands together behind her back, rocking on her heels a little bit, “You promised you’d bring me something back to study.”

“I did. I just vasn’t sure…” he seemed nervous. It was so strange not to be able to read someone by their face. She had to judge based on the clumsy appearance of his containment suit and his voice, “The history book you left vas interesting. It didn’t take me long to read it,” he didn’t sleep, so he had plenty of time to read.

“What about the other book?”

“Uh…” his nose like finger rubbed together and the mental clinked a little bit. She wondered what it would be like to not be able to bend her fingers. To not have any joints. Johann never wished that fate on anyone.

“Was it too forward? I’m sorry, Johann. I just heard that you, like most of the men here, enjoy those. I was in town visiting friends and I thought it would be nice to get you one that the other men hadn’t passed around. If you would prefer, I won’t do anything like that again. I promise,” she reached out and touched his shoulder a little. 

Johann couldn’t feel her touch, but he could see it and imagine what it felt like. Her voice and her body were sincere. She’d already admitted being a bit jaded about social norms. Most of the compound was made up as men and she had been pretty much raised here. It was only normal that she fit in with them and see it harmless to pass around dirty magazines like the guys did.

“No, no. Don’t apologize. I vas just taken off guard by it. You must find it strange that someone like me vould look at those.”

“Not really. You are human,” she smiled, “So...did you bring me anything? You said you would.”

“I did. It’s nothing big. Vee vere a bit focused on getting Liz out…” he moved past her and opened his door. He stood for a minute before stepping out of the way and letting her inside. Johann wasn’t sure how comfortable he was with this.

When they got back from the mission and everything was settled, he remembered coming back to his room. He didn’t need to sleep, but he had wanted to be alone. He was used to being alone these days and it was comforting to just be with his thoughts. Especially after what they had seen under the earth at that monastery. Poor Liz. Those creatures had been using her as a power source for their machines.

“It’s alright if you couldn’t find me anything. I just like like getting gifts,” she teased as he closed the door and moved to rummage around a bit. While he looked, she settled down on the edge of his bed and slipped her jacket off. She was wearing a basic, grey shirt with the bureau logo on it and jeans. The compound wasn’t really the height of fashion in the world after all. 

Part of her wondered how much he could see. He didn’t have a head, just that glass bulb. Could he see in every direction at once? If so, how did he manage to focus on just one thing without any eyes? 

“I did manage to grab this on our vay out,” he pulled a small stone and handed it to her. It was chipped a little around the edges, like it had been broken off of a larger piece, “There is some vriting on the back of it,” she turned it in her hands and saw the small carvings, “Vee found it on our vay out of the cave. I don’t think it vas made by those that lived in the temple.”

She ran her fingers over it, “Probably by the people living under it. The one that took Liz. What did they call themselves?”

“Servants of the Left Hand,” he sat down in the desk chair and watched as she played with the little stone, “Their leader called himself King of Fear. They vere all rust colored. Abe called them ‘mole-men’.”

“I think I’ve heard something about them. A book my mother gave me when I was younger. They were slaves to the first race of man. They revolted and killed their masters,” she wondered what the wording said. As interested as she was in Johann, the researcher in her cared more about that little stone. It was amazing how much history was probably in it. History that no one except the ones that carved it would know, “Thank you for grabbing this for me, Johann,” climbing to her feet, she walked over and pressed a kiss to the top of his glass bulb head, “I’m going to take it to the artifact room so I can study it a little more.”

Johann wasn’t sure what he was thinking by doing this, but as she turned to grab her jacket from his bed, he reached out and touched the back of her hip lightly, “D-do you have to?” when was the last time he had a woman in a bedroom with himself? Johann couldn’t even remember. The metal valve tips of his unbending fingers pulled away after he realized what he was doing.

Hal took it in stride though. She smiled and looked over her shoulder at him, “And what would you do with me if I stayed, Mr. Kraus?” 

What was he supposed to do or say? It wasn’t like it mattered. He couldn’t kiss her. He couldn’t hold her. He could even tell if she was wearing perfume or not. All he could do was look at her. What good was that for either of them? It would be no different than looking at those magazines. In fact, it would probably be worse, because he knew she’d only be posing for him out of pity. There was also the fact of his age. Granted, he did physically show his age, but he was well past his prime. If he did still have his body, she wouldn’t have even given him the magazine that she had or the attention that she had. Johann was sure of that.

“I...I don’t know…” he admitted and tilted his head downward. He felt ashamed of himself. Haldisa had been so kind to him. Treating him like she did everyone else, at least from what he’d seen. 

She draped her jacket over her arm and leaned over to kiss the top of his glass once again, “When you do know, make sure to let me know. Kate says you, Abe, Liz, and Roger are going to Venice tomorrow. Bring me something?” she held up the stone.

“O-of course.”

“Maybe then, you can tell me more about yourself. I’d really like to get to you know you better, Johann.”

“Okay,” he knew he sounded dumbfounded. 

With a smile, she headed for the door, “I promise, Johann, if you decide on _why_ you want me to stay, I will,” she blew him a kiss before slipping out. 

He was left to just sit there and stare at the door. Johann wasn’t entirely sure what had just happened. He couldn’t feel the first kiss, but it set something off in him. Had a woman ever done that to him when he did have a body? Johann had been married, but it was hardly a warm and loving marriage. It had been settling for both of them. Even though there had been little love between them, she’d been a rather overbearing woman towards him. Sometimes, Johann wondered if she had grown to love him over the years, but he doubted it.

What had he been expecting Haldisa to do? Even knowing he had no body and therefore no reason to think on it, he couldn’t help it. He wondered what she looked like under the standard B.P.R.D. clothing. She wasn’t a field agent, but he knew she still kept fit. He’d seen her in the gym a few times. He watched her in there a few times, but not just her, any of the women on the base that were in there. He felt ashamed to do it, but it wasn’t like he had much else to do with his free time and it wasn’t like he could actually do anything with them. 

If he did have a body, would he even have the courage to ask her to stay? If he had his body and he were a younger man, what would he do with her? Would she allow him to do the things he thought about? They were outlandish. At this point in his existence, he would hardly call it a life, he was sure he’d be satisfied with nothing more than simple kissing and touching. 

Johann reminded himself that there was no point in thinking on these things, “Best not to torture myself…” he muttered softly before turning his attention to a stack of papers Kate had given him the other day. He was better off with focusing on his work and not on a girl he couldn’t have. Better to focus on the next mission.


	4. Chapter 4

“Kasper sagt, dass Sie sich mit einem Geist gemacht haben?”

Hal rolled her eyes as she sat down at the long, wooden table, “Kasper is an idiot. I think he was dropped on his head one too many times,” she looked down at the bowl in front of her and made a face, “I’m not eating this. I’ve told you that a dozen times.”

“Iss, undankbar Mädchen. Kasper gekocht für Sie!”

“Ungrateful?! I’m the one that keeps you in this dump. It’s him who can’t mop the floor or clean the dishes. I work hard! I don’t come down here for verbal abuse. If I wanted to, I could just let you both die in here. One word from me and the bureau will swarm this place like flies and that’ll be the end of you! Now...I brought food with me. I want you both to eat it. It’s much better for you than this,” she poked the bowl with her fingertip and wrinkled her nose.

“You cannot talk to him like that…” the thin male stated meekly, “We are not eating that garbage.”

“It’s not garbage, Kasper. It’s food. Maybe if you ate more of it, you wouldn’t be falling over half the time. Instead, you two scavenge like vultures. Not even good vultures. The weak ones that have to eat what the other ones wouldn’t.”

“Sie zu Ihrem Bruder sprechen nicht so!”

“Stop yelling at me. I’ll speak to him and you how I want. You’re the one that wanted me to get a job with the bureau, so deal with it. I’m an adult now, you can’t tell me what to do. Who is everyone going to believe anyway? Me or a corpse and a moron? Me or the men living like pigs?”

There was no response and she smiled a little, “Good. Kasper, go get the food I brought and bring it down here.”

“I won’t eat it…” he grumbled.

“Then starve,” she snipped as he made his way up the stairs to the lit kitchen. She climbed to her feet and moved to turn on a nearby lamp, “And we’re not sitting in the dark anymore either. We have lamps down here, there is no reason to try to strain our eyes with these silly candles,” there was a slight hissing noise from the other end of the table as she turned the lamp on, “See, that’s so much better. Now I can see you too.”

Haldisa sat back down and smiled across the table, “Schrecklich Mädchen…” was growled across the table.

“I love you too, Father,” she said as she rolled her eyes.

The sight across the table was one from a horror movie. Sitting in a wheelchair at the other end of the table was a pale, thin man. One of his claw like hands was sitting on the joystick of the electric chair. His nails were long, yellow, and crusted. His arms were rail thin and bare. His skin was loose and baggy around his bones, as if it was ready to slosh off his body at any moment. 

An air hose hung around his wrinkled and grey skinned neck, up to his nose. His head was bare of any hair and his eyes looked red and dead. In fact, his whole body looked like it was being held together simply by the wheelchair that he was tightly fitted into with belts around his legs, waist, and torso. Even the hand on the joystick seemed unable to move more than to twitch around the stick to make it move the slightest. It seemed like the hand had been on it for so long that it was stuck there. His other hand was resting, and shaking, on the tabletop as the man, creature, took deep breaths.

“Erzähl mir von der Geister Mann.”

“Oh, he’s wonderful. I’ve never seen anything like him. He’s not really a ghost, because he’s not really dead. He was out of his body when it was destroyed, so he had nothing to come back to. You’d like him. He’s German. Born in the late forties.”

“Zu alt,” the creature rasped out.

“Nonsense. He doesn’t have a body, so how can he be too old? He’s what you’ve been looking for. A soul with no body. And he’s so sweet,” she pulled two small stones from her pocket and set them on the table, “He brought me these. One is from a monastery and one is from Venice.”

“Er wird das tun, was Sie wollen?”

“I think so. He watches me when I’m in the gym and he makes any excuse necessary to sit with me. He even sits in the office with me while I have coffee. Just sits. Sometimes he doesn’t even say anything, as if he’s hoping I won’t notice he’s there. It’s hard to say for sure that he’s looking at me, but I think he is. Supposedly, he can look in more than one direction at once.”

“Wann wird er fertig sein?”

“Yes, Hal, when will ‘it’ be ready? Or are you too busy making kissy faces at ‘it’?” Kasper snapped as he came back down the stairs finally and dropped a plate of food down in front of her. He looked at it with disgust, like it angered him just to be near it.

“You’re just jealous because no one wants to make kissy faces with you. Fucking prick,” she snapped back before picking at her more appealing plate of food with a fork, “I don’t know when he’ll be ready. He’s still new to the bureau. Even with his years in his state, he is still very inexperienced. I would say that it will be a year, maybe two, before he’s ready.”

“Zu lang! Ich werde nicht warten!” the man growled.

She narrowed her eyes at the man, “You will, because you don’t have a choice. If I say it will take one year, two years, three years, or even ten…you don’t have a choice. They aren’t going to let an inexperienced agent go out on a mission on his own. That means if he goes missing before they do that, then they will search hard for him. If he goes missing on a mission alone, there is always the chance that his suit was wrecked and he dissipated,” which she was told was a possibility.

“You just want to play with him. You do not care about Father,” Kasper snapped.

Hal sighed and stood up, “I shouldn’t have even come here. I should just let the both of you rot alone. I can’t even stand the smell in here.”

“Lehnen Sie sich zurück nach unten, Haldisa.”

“No,” she set her hands on the table and leaned across it a bit, “Don’t you forget that if I wanted to, I could kill you both. Unlike your idiot son over here, I actually know what I’m doing. If you want all this to go right, you’ll listen to me. Now…” she stood back up and straightened her shirt out, “I’m going back to the compound. I’ll come see you in a few weeks. Abe and Roger are away for a while, Liz is still in recovery, and Kate is busy with paper work. So Johann is in need of company.”

“Lassen Sie sich nicht wohl mit ihm, Haldisa. Ich werde es nicht dulden. Wie der letzte.”

She stopped for a moment as she reached the stairs, “I know. I won’t let that happen. Thanks to you, I find it hard to feel close to anyone, Father. Be good and try to eat something decent for once…” 

Haldisa made her way out of the small house and into the B.P.R.D. jeep for her long trek back up the mountain. She loved her family, she really did. They were everything to her. It had been the saddest day of her life when her mother passed away. It had been just as sad when her father had to be placed into the wheelchair and couldn’t care for himself. She would do anything for them. In fact, she had done anything for them. If her father wanted Johann, she’d give the ectoplasm man to him. 

Till then, she saw no harm in getting cozy with him. After all, he had to trust her and be willing to do anything she asked. That wasn’t going to happen if she wasn’t close to him. It wouldn’t hurt to flirt and play with him. He obviously liked it. Probably made him feel more human again. Hal also truly did like talking with him. He was intelligent and he had a lot of life to talk about.

That’s what she was thinking about as she made her way to his room on the base and knocked on the door lightly before poking her head in, “You busy?” it had been several weeks since the team got back from Venice and Johann had been here for several months already. She hadn’t been in his room since he gave her the stone from the monastery. She’d left him with an open offer to visit him privately, but he hadn’t taken her up on it. She decided it was time for her to make the offer again.

“No. I vas just looking over some papers,” he was sitting at the desk with various books and papers scattered across it. Johann didn’t need to sleep, so he spent a lot of time with nothing to do except read. 

“Good,” she smiled and slipped inside, closing the door behind her, “I was hoping you’d tell me more about Venice.”

He moved his hands up and nodded. Johann expressed himself with his hands a lot to compensate for not being able to with his mouth or eyes, “Of course. I still find it hard to believe that you have never left Colorado.”

“That’s why I work with the artifacts. It helps me explore the world without having to go see it,” she sat down on the edge of the bed across from him, “Plus, I would rather hear about it from you.”

“Y-you vould?”

“I like the accent,” she teased and smiled, “So tell me about Venice.”

“Vell, it was not very pleasing to be in at first. The vhole city vas empty. It vas eerie. I have never been someplace like that before. It vas unsettling how quiet it vas.”

“The reports say it was a vampire. Was it really?”

“Sort of,” the ectoplasm man moved his hands back and forth, up and down, and all over the place as he talked, “He took the spirit of the city. A goddess. He vas holding her captive.”

“That’s awful. Venice, so that would have been Cloacina, right?”

Johann nodded, “Correct. Romulus Diovanni, the vampire there, vas holding her captive so the city vould die. Then he could control it. In the end, it vas Roger that managed to free the Goddess.”

“I’m sure he couldn’t have done it without you or the others.”

“You’re much too kind and loose vith your compliments.”

She smiled and laid back on his bed, “And you’re terrible at taking them. What was the Goddess like? Did you actually get to meet her?”

“Vee did, sort of. She appeared after she vas freed. I think Roger vas taken with her,” Roger was a curious one. Hal had seen him several times since they had come to Colorado. He was a strange creature. She knew that the bureau had implanted a bomb in him as a safety precaution. That had been part of the reasoning for Hellboy’s departure from the group. The bureau did not list him as human like it did Liz and Johann, but from what she could tell, he considered himself human. Or at least still living, “I got the stone I gave you from a piece that had fallen off a statue of her.”

“What was Cloacina the goddess of again?” Hal knew the answer, but she wanted him to say it.

He was silent for a minute before responding, “Vell, uh, she presides over the Cloaca Maxima. The Great Drain. Goddess of the sewers.”

“Hmmm...I thought she presided over something else too. Maybe I’m wrong. There are so many spirits and gods and goddesses. It’s hard to keep them straight sometimes.”

“Abraham says she is the protector of, uh…” she watched him set his unjointed hands together and ring them nervously a little, “Sexual intercourse…” he was silent again before quickly saying, “In marriage. Sexual intercourse in marriage.”

“Right, that’s it. I couldn’t remember. So what happened after she was freed? Did the vampire go up in a puff of dust or anything?”

“The vaters cleared up and people vere already coming back as vee vere leaving.”

“That’s good,” she yawned and folded her arms behind her head, “This bed is so much more comfortable than mine. They give you guys the best stuff,” Hal teased a little before curling up on her side.

He fidgeted a little in his chair, “I vouldn’t know. I don’t use it much.”

“Just when you look at your magazines,” she perked an eyebrow at him and smiled as she draped an arm over her hip, “I should sleep in here tonight. My roommate brought in bugs, so I’m stuck in a cot in the mess hall till it’s cleared up tomorrow.”

“I...I don’t think...uh, I don’t think that vould be appropriate,” Johann wasn’t sure what she was expecting of him. As much as he liked being around Haldisa, she did have a way of making him uncomfortable easily.

“I don’t see why not. After all, what would people say? That I slept in your bed while you sat reading papers all night? Come on, Scarecrow, let me use your bed. Please? You said it yourself, you don’t use it much.”

“Scarecrow?”

“Yeah, from the Wizard of Oz. In the books, the Scarecrow watches over Dorothy while she sleeps because he doesn’t have to sleep.”

“I’m not sure I like that comparison…”

With a soft sigh, she climbed off the bed and walked over to him. She slid her fingers over the shoulders of his containment suit and leaned down to kiss his glass bulb of a head. Hal had never actually touched him beyond a kiss to the head and a little nudging to his forearms. He was much squishier than she was expecting. Skin had a certain amount of give to it naturally, but this was like touching a well badly stuffed pillow. It was lumpy and it was like it was moving, “Johann, what are you so worried about? Think of it this way, I trust you enough to want to share a room with you. What’s wrong with that? I’ll even keep my regular clothes on,” not that her pajamas were all that appealing. In fact, they were very similar to her regular clothing, just lighter fabrics.

Johann wanted her to. He wanted to lay with her in the bed. He wanted to have a body so he could feel her fingers on his shoulders and her body against his. It hurt, emotionally, to realize that he couldn’t even remember what it felt like. Even with his cold marriage, he had at least known what it was like as a human to feel a body in the bed next to his. He couldn’t even do that now. Watching her sleep sounded very creepy, but she seemed okay with him doing it, “I suppose that it vould be...alright,” would anyone even care? He doubted it.

She smiled and leaned down to kiss him again, “Thank you. That mess hall sounds creepy at night. I’d never get any sleep there,” sliding her hands back over his shoulders and slipping her jacket off, she headed back over to the bed and climbed back on, “You know, if you want, you can lay with me. It is your bed after all.”

“I don’t need to sleep, Hal,” which he knew that she knew very well.

“I know. I just want you to know that I wouldn’t mind you being in bed with me. I wouldn’t mind you being with me for a lot of things. Good night, Johann,” she smiled and turned her back to him, hugging one of the flat pillows to herself as she settled in to doze off.

Johann sat staring at her for a few minutes before turning back to his papers. He made sure to turn off the overhead light and turn on his desk lamp. He did well to ignore the fact that she was there with him for most of the night. It was hard though. Unlike other people, he could see in all directions and it took focus to see just straight in front of him. He could clearly see Haldisa sleeping behind him.

“Mein gott…” he muttered to himself before climbing to his feet, “Vhat are you doing, Johann?” he questioned himself as he climbed, somewhat awkwardly, onto the bed. He knew he was going to be bored out of his mind after a while, but he seemed a little worth it once he laid down and set an arm over her waist.

She moved up against him and sighed softly in her sleep. She laid against him like he was a big pillow. While it was nice to see her doing it, it was still upsetting that he couldn’t feel her skin. He couldn’t even feel the pressure of her body pressing against the containment suit. Still, he tried to focus on the fact that she wanted this. 

Haldisa wanted him to hold her like this. So he would.


	5. Chapter 5

What was one night of a guilty pleasure for Johann, one that he hadn’t intended on happening again, was going on six months now. Hal was only supposed to stay in his room till the bug issue in hers had been taken care of, but she had slept in his even when he was away on a mission. He was becoming used to coming into his room late at night to see her curled up on his bed. Most nights he just went about the things he usually did, but there were several where he would climb into the bed with her and just lay next to her. Even though he couldn’t feel her, it made him feel a little human again.

It occurred to him as she laid against him that they were in some sort of dysfunctional relationship. One that was starting to make him feel guilty. Especially when she acted the way she was tonight. Most nights she was already asleep when he came in, but he’d just come back from a mission in the city and she’d waited up for him. 

It was hard for him to notice what she was doing sometimes without being able to feel it. But she had a habit of convincing him into the bed with her to talk about his missions. She’d run her hands over his shoulders, as if she were trying to massage them. She’d lean in and kiss at the back of his glass bulb head. She rest her head against his back. 

Tonight, she was even more affectionate than usual. Enough was enough. Johann had seen some of the looks he got from other men in the compound. There weren’t many women here. There were Liz and Kate, but most saw them as off limits. There were a few like Hal who worked in the non-combat areas. He knew that the other men felt it unfair and possibly even wrong that he was taking her attention. He knew it was wrong too. He was depriving her of a relationship with a real future and with a real man.

They had just come back from an investigation mission and she was doting on him. The others were in a lab discussing the situation while she was running her fingers over the containment suit, “There aren’t any leaks, are there? You didn’t get attacked, did you? What the hell is that thing they have down there? Is that one of the frog-monsters?” Hal leaned in and kissed next to the ventilation mask on his glass head.

He reached up and pushed her roaming hands away, “I’m alright. I vasn’t involved in the fighting,” fights were dangerous for him. One wrong hit and his suit could become damaged and he ran the risk of dissipating into the air if there wasn’t a dead body around for him to hole up in. It made him feel weaker than he knew he was, “Vee vill be heading back out soon.”

“Already?” she looked upset by the news.

“Ja. As soon as vee find out vhere this Derby man has got off to. Vee thought he killed the men in that lab, but they vere just infected. They turned into those frog-monsters.”

“That’s awful,” even though he’d push her hands away, she reached out for him again, “Surely they are going to let you all rest a little before going back out again?” her fingers ran along the shoulders of the suit, moving down his arms to clasp at his unbending fingers. She tried to tug him towards the bed and he pulled back, “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t need to rest. You know that, Hal,” his voice sounded more stern than usual, “I need to do some research.”

“But it’s late, Johann. Come lay down with me?” she begged softly, “I miss you when you’re gone.”

“I have only been gone a day. You rest, I need to vork,” he pushed her away and headed towards his desk. He didn’t have it in him to tell Hal that she needed to stop staying here. He didn’t want to. He wanted her to stay here, he really did. He wanted to be able to lay with her and hold her like he had been. The truth was that he very much enjoyed the way she doted on him. It wasn’t right though.

Hal threw her hands up dramatically and walked over to flop down on the bed. She stretched out and sighed loudly as he seemed to ignore her as he went to work on flipping through papers and books. It upset her. It always did when he wouldn’t lay with her. Hal had her own reasons for wanting to be close to him. Most of them involved her family, but the more time she spent with him, the more time she wanted to spend with him. 

He was sweet, kind, intelligent, and unique. There was no lack of unique people around the B.P.R.D., even before the specialty unit came here. However, he was different. He wasn’t like the others. She found herself attracted to him. She wanted to be intimate with him in any way that she could. Whether it was sitting in the library to talk or laying draped across his chest sleeping. She wanted to give him the care and affection she knew he was lacking. She was well aware that he was uncomfortable with the whole situation.

That didn’t matter though.

She stretched out on her back and unzipped her uniform jacket. Hal knew what she was doing was inappropriate, but she didn’t care. She wanted Johann to know she was serious about this strange relationship they were involved in. Her fingers moved up and pushed her shirt up under her breasts. Exposing her dark stomach. Hal wasn’t in the best shape of her life, but they had a good gym here. After all, there was little else to do except work out, talk, and order stuff online. 

Hal knew perfectly well what Johann’s sight range was. He could see in several directions at once and she had no doubts that one of those lines of sight was on her while they were together. Her fingers traced over her stomach lazily before moving down to the hem of her pants. She popped the button open and sighed softly. She smirked as she heard him fumble with his papers, “Johann, won’t you come lay with me? I sleep better when you’re with me,” it sounded so corny and ridiculous, but at the same time she meant it.

“...” he wanted to. Johann wanted to know if she would continue to remove her clothing in that manner. He wanted to lay with her as she did it. It would hardly be any fun to just sit and watch, but he was willing to take that over nothing. No, he wouldn’t. It was torture for him. She didn’t seem to understand that, “I think you should leave.”

That wasn’t the reaction she was going for. In fact, it surprised her. She sat up quickly, “What?”

“You should go back to your room. I don’t think it’s good for you to stay here at night anymore.”

Fixing her shirt and pants, she got up and sat on the edge of the bed, “Johann, I don’t understand. I thought you liked me being here?”

He tried to clench the papers in his hands, but the lack of joints in his suits didn’t allow for it. He felt frustrated, “It’s inappropriate. You’re a young voman and you’re vasting your time on me. I should have ended it veeks ago,” it shouldn’t have even started in the first place.

“But, Johann, I like spending time with you,” she walked over and slid her arms over his shoulders and leaned against his back a bit, “It’s not inappropriate when the other people here do it. So why should it be for us?”

He shrugged off her arms and slid from the chair, “Because it’s not. I’m too old for you,” he went with that.

She stared at him with disbelief. With her warm, melted chocolate colored eyes, “Tell me the truth or I’m not leaving.”

Johann turned his sight to the ground. Why did she have to like him? Was this some kind of psychological thing? Being with a man that she couldn’t really have. It really did say something about her mental state, at least that was what he was telling himself, “Because you are insufferable! You make me angry! You touch me and kiss me, even though you know I cannot feel it! Do you have any idea how that affects me!? Vhat must be vrong in your head to make you vant a man like me!?

His shouting caught her off guard and she stepped back a little from him, “What’s wrong with me? What the hell is wrong with you?! A girl wants to spend time with you, wants to take care of you, and wants to be with you in any way possible...but you tell her that something must be wrong with her!” Hal let her emotions get the better of her. She knew she should calm down and try to find a way to, if not intimately, but at least emotionally be friends with him. That wasn’t working though. She felt worked up and unnecessarily angry with him, “You know, Johann, I thought you were a nice guy. Smart and sweet and nice, but you’re just a jerk like all the others! All you care about is the fact that you can’t touch me. Who cares about that? How is us being together any different than someone who falls in love with someone who has no feeling in one or more of their limbs or even their whole body? It happens, Johann!”

“It…” he didn’t know what to say. He just knew that he couldn’t keep doing what he had been with her. Maybe things were different these days, but that didn’t change how wrong he viewed it as, “It’s not the same!”

“Screw you!” she snapped and shoved past him, knocking his pillowy body out of the way as she stormed to the door. 

He didn’t even try to stop her as she slammed the door shut after leaving. He stared at the door for a moment. Somewhat hoping it would open and they would start to apologize to each other. However, that didn’t happen. It stayed shut and he settled back into his desk chair to his work.

Hal stood outside the door, waiting to see if he would come open it. She waited to hear the sound of his metal boots clunking on the floor. It didn’t happen. She just stood there staring at it and even moved towards the handle for a moment before backing up again. If he wasn’t going to apologize, then neither was she.

Hot tears welled up in her eyes. Her own feelings surprised her. Johann was nothing more than an added part to her family’s plan. Her father told her every time she visited to not get attached to him. Her brother snapped that she already was. 

Why did she like him so much? Hal thought about it as she walked slowly back to her room. She liked him and she hadn’t lied. He was sweet and kind. He was always polite too. And while he wasn’t the brightest in the whole base, he was a quick learner and intelligent in ways that others weren’t. She’d seen his file. As a human man, she probably wouldn’t have taken notice of him unless forced to. He was right, as a human, he’d been far too old for her. 

The picture of him looked tired. His eyes. They were heavy and dark. He never talked to her about his life before becoming what he was now. Had he been happy? If not, then why could he not be happy now? Sure, his life had changed drastically, but at least he was still alive in some sense of the word. Maybe he wished he was dead, fully. If that was the case, all he had to do was tear open his suit and let his soul dissipate into the air.

No. He didn’t want to die. He just wanted to be human again. It wasn’t selfish. After all, why shouldn’t he want to be?

She wondered what it would have been like if he came to the B.P.R.D. as a consultant rather than as a special talent agent. Would she have taken the same sort of interest in him that she was now? Or would they just spend a short period of time together discussing work and then go on with their lives as colleagues? If not, then was he right? Did she only want to be with him because there was something wrong with her?

Of course there was something wrong with her. All she had to do was think about her family to know that.

Haldisa told herself that even if he had been in human form still, she would feel the same way. Maybe even better, because it would mean that her family would want nothing to do with him. As it was, she knew her father was going to be very upset with her. He’d told her not to come on too strong and she’d screwed up.


	6. Chapter 6

Johann watched in despair as Hal sat with another guy in the mess hall. He didn’t need to eat, but he went there for social reasons. She sat with a lot of guys. After all, there weren’t many other women around. It only upset him now to see her like this. Only because this guy seemed to be different from the others she was friends with.

They sat together. Alone. They would walk in together and find a table to themselves instead of sitting with the others. They sat close together. Their hips almost touching. Every so often, she’d laugh and touch him in some way. The way she used to do to him. Just a light touch to his hand or arm. Even though he hadn’t been able to feel it, he had liked it.

This guy was fairly average to look at. From what Johann knew, appearance didn’t seem to matter much to Hal. She’d told him that she thought he was sweet, kind, and smart. Was that the same things she saw in this new guy? Would she realize that it was better to be with someone more like herself and prefer it? Surely she’d been with men before him. While he didn’t agree with the morality of some younger people these days, he wasn’t a prude.

What really depressed him today was that they were in civilian clothing. They weren’t even sitting down to eat. It looked like they were just passing through to speak to someone and then headed on their way out. They were going to town together. An hour long drive down the mountain. Just them together. His mind came up with all sorts of things. Them snuggling up together in the jeep while it was parked on the side of the mountain road. Them sitting in a restaurant together, her rubbing her foot along one of his legs under the table. A private room in a hotel in town somewhere…

“Johann?” Kate’s voice snapped him back to reality, “You alright? You’ve been standing there for a while staring at the wall…”

“Ja...yes…” he turned quickly and started back towards his room, “I’m fine…”

She followed after him, “Are you sure? Is it because Hal is going to town with Jason?”

Johann hadn’t known his name and would have preferred to not know a name for the face, “Vhy vould I be upset?”

“Cause...you know…” Kate brushed some of her blond hair behind her ear, “You two were…”

The ectoplasmic man stopped and turned to face her, “I don’t know what you’re hinting at, Kate, but nothing happened vith Hal.”

“I just thought because she used to spend so much time in your room…”

“And vhat do you think ve did in there?” he felt angry.

Kate had obviously misjudged the situation, or at least she thought so, “Johann, I wasn’t trying to imply anything. If you’re fine, then you’re fine. I just thought, well, that you might like to know that she doesn’t like him that much.”

“I’m fine,” he snapped before starting off again. Kate didn’t follow this time.

He slammed the door shut to his room and sat down at his desk. He just sat there, not moving, just thinking. It made him angry that he wasn’t really a man anymore. Would it have mattered if he was? His wife had died several years ago, not that it had been a love filled marriage in the first place. So it wasn’t as if he would have been committing adultery. What would it have been like with Haldisa if that had been the case? If he could touch her? It was hard not to think about. Any hot bloodied man, he assumed, would enjoy a woman so much younger than himself doting on him like she had.

“It doesn’t matter!” he snapped at himself, slamming his metal, hose like hands on the desk top hard. 

Johann had to accept what he was. He’d thought he’d done that years ago, but Hal made it surface again. Made his loathing for himself rise. At least with Kate and Liz, they didn’t dote on him. They treated him as indifferently as they did everyone else. They cared, but not enough to come see him every day. 

Hal made him feel like he was alive again, but it only served as a reminder of how undead he felt. 

It had been nearly three months since he’d told her not to stay in his room anymore. Unless they had to, they didn’t even speak anymore. Even when they had to, it was all very professional and short. He missed talking to her. He missed being around her. And he definitely missed her doting.

It was only natural that she move on. He just hadn’t expected it to be so soon. Other than a body and youth, he was sure there was nothing this man had that he didn’t. Then again, those were very important things.

“Stop thinking about it…” he told himself, “Mein gott…” he needed to stop torturing himself.

***

“So you really don’t think it’s too soon to meet your dad? I mean, we’ve only gone out once before this.”

Hal smiled and turned the heat in the jeep up a little more, “If you don’t want to meet him, you can just drop me off and pick me up in a few hours. I told you that. I have dinner with him at least once a month. He’s old and he gets upset if I don’t.”

“Naw...I really like you, Hal. I think this might be good for us.”

She leaned over and kissed his cheek, “I do too. Dad is going to love you. So is my brother.”

“Bet they’ll like me a lot better than the ghostman.”

She frowned and huffed a little, “Hey, his name is Johann and he’s a great guy. And my dad never met him. It’s not like we were dating or anything. I just liked talking to him.”

“I still can’t get used to those weirdos. The fishman and the ghostman. It’s weird.”

“I told you, his name is Johann,” she didn’t seem to care what Abe was called, “And he’s not a weirdo. He’s a very powerful medium and he just happened to have an accident. It wasn’t his fault. He’s really smart and he’s very sweet. Even if I had decided to date him, my dad would have liked him well enough. Dad’s only cared that I’m happy.”

“Whatever you say. Doesn’t matter anyway. We’re together now, right?”

“Of course,” she smiled again and sat up a little, “Over there. Park next to the truck.”

Jason pulled the jeep in and stared out the window for a moment, “Really? This place?”

“What? You got a problem with my family house? I know it’s not the greatest, but it’s all my dad could afford when he married my mother. He refuses to leave it,” she unbuckled her seat belt and started to climb out, “You coming?”

“Uh...yeah, sure. Kind of sweet he won’t leave the house.”

“Sweet. Right,” she nodded as she lead him to the door. Before knocking, she grabbed him with a smile and pushed him up against the screen door, “Before we go in, I want you to kiss me.”

“Right now?” he seemed surprised.

“Come on, Jason, I won’t get to kiss you till we leave tonight. So please? Just a kiss.”

“Your dad isn’t, like, watching, is he? Like some kind of test to see if I’ll really kiss his daughter?”

Hal giggled a little, “Of course not, Jason. My dad is practically blind anyway. Just kiss me.”

She closed her eyes and stood on her toes, waiting for him. Had the house been nicer and the neighborhood been nicer, this probably would have been perfect. As it was, it was average. Not bad, but not great.

He leaned in to kiss her, but their lips never met. He groaned in pain before collapsing down to her feet, “Christ, Kasper, could you have taken any longer? I dealt with it when he was playing hockey with my tonsils like an amature before. I didn’t think I could do it again.”

“You are the one who is late,” the man behind the screen door snapped at her. He was holding a baseball bat and there was fresh blood on it.

“Whatever. Just take him. I’m going to head back.”

“Cover story?”

“Don’t worry. No one is going to come looking for him here. He was transferred here because of a sexual harassment thing at the last compound. He got fresh with me. I told him no, booted him out on the road, and that’s that,” Hal did her research for her targets, “There’s a lot of bears this time of year in the woods. You’ll take care of that part,” it wasn’t like she did this often with other agents. It was usually just men in the bar. Jason just fit what they needed.

“Mangled. Good,” he seemed unpleasantly excited at the prospect.

“Tell dad I love him.”

“Tell him yourself,” he snapped as he pushed the door open and Jason groaned as he was pushed aside by it.

“No thanks. You’re too messy and dad likes it that way. You two are lucky I love you, cause you both disgust me.”

“Whatever…” he shrugged as he reached down to grab Jason by the jacket and drag him inside, “We need the Ghostman.”

“Johann. How many times do I have to tell people? His name is Johann. And I know. I screwed up. I’ll fix it. Somehow,” she wasn’t sure yet how, but she would. 

It had been three months and she had been bitter about it. She was angry with him. How dare he throw her out? It wasn’t like he had women crawling over themselves to get to him. He should have been happy she paid any attention to him at all.

Still, she would fix it.


	7. Chapter 7

“Jeez, that man is a monster now.”

“I know. He’s huge!”

“Did you see how many weights he was lifting?!”

“Christ, I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“He’s like the fucking Hulk now.”

“It’s kind of awesome. I’m just glad he’s on our side.”

“He’s even got the balls to ask Kate and Liz out. Granted, they keep turning him down.”

“He’s so different now. Guess this is the new Johann.”

New indeed. Abe came back from a private trip with news about some weird cult. They had been growing bodies for god knows what, he hadn’t really read the file yet. All but one of the bodies had been destroyed in a fire on the island. The one that survived had been brought back for study.

Johann didn’t even wait for permission. After all, someone had told him once that it was easier to ask for forgiveness than permission. He took the body for himself. 

Once done, someone asked him why he didn’t just do that sooner. He had to explain that taking over someone else’s body or a dead body wasn’t the same. A body was born with a soul. That soul was a part of it. Any other soul that tried to inhabit it could only do so temporarily. Sure, there were demons that could do it, but he wasn’t on that sort of level. This body, this man-made body, was not born for any specific soul. It was free for the taking. That’s what the people who had made it needed it for.

He planned on keeping this body for as long as it would last. Judging by how big and strong it was, he assumed that was going to be a long time. The entire compound would stand around in amazement as he lifted nearly a ton in weights at once. He didn’t know what a Hulk was, but it sounded impressive when people referred to him that way. 

He was damn near seven feet tall and was built like a brick wall. He was strong as an ox. Not just that either, but he felt confident. He was everything in this body that he never could be in his original body or ectoplasmic form. He was damn near a god like this.

Not just those things. He could eat, drink, smell, touch. Everything was back. Granted, he had to lose his large range of sight, but he didn’t care about that. 

He cared that he could taste again. That he could taste the bitter of coffee. The sweetness of chocolate. The tartness of lemons. He could smell again. The perfume of a woman passing by. The sweat from a long workout. The fresh paint on the walls on the fourth floor. He could touch again. Feel his own hair as he touched it. Feel the bumps in the wood of his desk. Feel the smooth, cold metal of the weight bars. 

It was all amazing.

Then the confidence. He wanted to show off to everyone what he could do. Not just that. He wanted to prove himself to everyone. He wanted to do things he never could in his previous life. The weights and gorging himself on food was just the beginning. He wanted the touch of a woman too. Perhaps he was too ambitious, but he saw no reason not to enjoy everything he could.

He felt closes with Kate and Liz, but they both seemed to reject him. Both would say they already ate or had work to do whenever he asked them to dinner. It was a little discouraging at first, but he told himself that it wouldn’t be like that for long. They were still updating his employee files and the war was still going on, so he wasn’t allowed a pass out yet. Part of his mind told him to go slow and not worry about one-night stands, but the majority of his brain told him to screw it. He had a right to enjoy his new body and everything it had to offer. There was bound to be at least one woman in town that would be interested in him.

However, five months into having his new body, the girl he should have thought about didn’t come into his mind once. Well, maybe once, but only briefly. It was the one spot that his new confidence didn’t take care of him.

It was only by chance that he was leaving the gym room that he ran into Haldisa as she was going in. He caught her before she fell to the ground as she bounced off his huilking form, “Hal, I am sorry. I did not see you there.”

She had her dark hair pulled back and was wearing the workout clothing he’d once taken guilty pleasure in watching her workout in. She shot him a narrow look before pulling away from his assisting hands, “Whatever. See ya…”

The cold tone didn’t sit well with him. He looked down at her in surprise, “A-are you alright?” perhaps something was wrong with her. He hadn’t heard that she was ill. Even if she was, she certainly wouldn’t be working out if she was.

“Even if I’m not, it’s none of your fucking business. Will you move?”

Johann wasn’t sure what he had done to deserve the treatment, “Did I...did I upset you?”

She shook her head, “No. Just move. Please,” she snapped. Not wanting to get into a fight, he stepped aside to let her pass. She walked by and just as he was starting to walk away himself, she snapped again, “Yes, you did upset me. You ask every other damn woman in this base to have dinner with you, but you don’t fucking ask me. I was right when I called you a jerk. You think you’re just so great now, don’t you?”

“Hal, I…”

But she cut him off, “Don’t even try to explain it to me. I don’t even want to hear it. You’re just a god damn prick. Just like every other guy. I’m glad you haven’t tried to ask me out, cause I would have turned you down anyway. Just like every other girl has. You know why they won’t go out with you, Johann? Because they think you’re a freak. That’s why.”

By now, they had a small audience. A bunch of the other guys were staring in amazement as little Haldisa tore into the hulk of a man. Many of them had known her for a long time and weren’t all that surprised. They knew that she used to spend every night for six months in his room. They knew the reason most of the other women turned Johann down was because they were already involved in relationships, with the exception of Kate and Liz, but Hal did make a good point. It was hard to forget what he was before now.

“I do not think…”

“I really don’t care what you think, Johann. I cried about you. You didn’t even come talk to me once after you tossed me out,” she didn’t seem to care to spill some of their private life in public, “I knew you were insecure, but when I heard about this body, I thought you might come to even say hello, but you couldn’t even do that. You didn’t think you were good enough for me before and now you think you’re too good for me. Too good for some Colorado mountain idiot who knows nothing except this fucking mountain. You just think you’re so damn great. So why don’t you just piss off and go back to ignoring me and don’t worry about if I’m fine or not. Cause you know what, I’m damn fucking fine.”

As an after thought she slung her towel at him before storming off into the gym.

Johann stood in amazement. He’d never had any tear into him like that before. He wasn’t sure what to say or what to feel. He had thought about Hal when he first got the body. He even thought about going to talk to her, but he thought it was for the best not to. Women were strange creatures and he thought she might get angry with him if he did. He figured if she wanted to speak to him that she would come talk to him. Apparently that had been a mistake. 

“Hey, don’t worry about it. Hal’s got a nice body and she’s great with artifacts, but she’s weird,” one of the other guys tried to talk to him, “All women are. If she blows up like this, then you’re probably better off.”

“Really?” Johann didn’t have much experience with women. He and his wife had been put together by their families and marriage had just been a settling thing. She had never really been angry with him. They just sat in cold silence for the entirety of their marriage. The only time she’d come close to raising her voice to him or pronouncing her dislike of their marriage was when she found out he’d been convincing a man to have seances just so he could see the spirit of his dead wife, who he felt he’d been in love with.

“Yeah. Women like Hal are good for a good time, but they get all angry like that. It’s impossible to live with them.”

He remembered how she blew up at him the last time in his room. Sure, he’d thrown her out so he felt he deserved it; but now he wasn’t so sure.

He sighed softly as he headed towards the cafeteria. He passed by the gym window and looked in to see her on one of the running machines. He couldn’t see her face, but she was gripping the handlebars so tight that her knuckles were white.

Johann felt like he had to make it up to her. To let her know that he hadn’t meant to cut her out because of the things she said or thought. He did care about her. He still didn’t think he was good enough for her. He didn’t think she was some mountain hillbilly. He thought she was smart and different. He held her to the same standards that he did Kate and Liz. 

So why had he asked them out, but not her? Johann wasn’t sure he could answer. Did Hal intimidate him? Even now? Have women always been this complicated? If so, perhaps it was best that his marriage had been so easy. Johann wasn’t sure if he was mentally cut out for this part of his new life.

“Mein gott…” he seemed to say that a lot when she was around.


	8. Chapter 8

Her father had been terribly upset when she told him the news about Johann’s new body. They had no way of telling how it all worked. All she knew was that he’d been disembodied before and unable to just take over someone completely. Yet with an empty body to begin with, he seemed to be able to keep it. If he were to die in this new body, would his spirit come back out or would he pass on to a true death? With no way to answer this question, this put a halt to their plans. 

Kasper suggested just luring him here and killing him anyway to find out, but Hal rejected that idea. He was too important to the Bureau. They’d look for him. It had been one thing for to assume while out that his suit was damaged and he had no bodies around to hold himself in till a new suit could be obtained. But now he had a body. They’d look for it. Given the strength of it, she doubted they would accept something like a bear attack.

This put an end to her father’s plans. Haldisa wasn’t entirely upset about it. She was at a point in her life that she really didn’t care about her father the way she once did. He blamed her closeness with people at the BPRD over it. There was even a fight with her brother when he stated that she was happy the Ghostman had a body now. 

Sure, in some way, she was happy for him. It’s what he wanted. A body and a new chance at life. Selfishly, it made her a little sad for herself. Without a need for him anymore, it meant that she had no reason to spend time with him. Not that she had in nearly a year. 

The day she went off on him just outside the compound gym had upset her for the past few weeks. It hadn’t just been him avoiding her, but she had avoided him as well since he got his body. After her workout, she spent the night in her bed crying. Hal disliked her own feelings at the moment. She hated how much he affected her.

Her avoidance of him took a harsher turn after that day. She would even peek into rooms to make sure he wasn’t there before going in. It was easy to do, because he was hard to miss. She’d even snipped at Kate, a woman she considered a friend, for mentioning him to her. 

Currently, she was hunched over a magnifier, trying to read some writing on a stone. It was faded and the language wasn’t an overly familiar one for her. She heard the lab room door open behind her, but ignored it. People were constantly coming and going in here. One of her hands groped around behind her back on a small tray looking for her pen, but not wanting turn away from her rock.

Someone handed it to her after she was fumbling around for it for about a minute, “Thanks, Sans,” the little intern was quiet and always doing things like that.

“Ja, no problem,” it wasn’t Sans voice.

She turned quick and knocked the tray over to see Johann’s hulking form there, “Dammit, Johann,” she snapped as she started to pick the things up, “What the hell do you want?”

He, apparently, was prepared for her shortness and took it in stride, “I was wondering if we could talk,” she noticed that his accent was gone. It made sense. Accents were, somewhat, related to the vocal cords and tongue muscles; though more through local usage. She could still get a sense of his German in his voice, but the new body made it less heavy and noticeable. She expected that would change the longer he was in it.

“I don’t have anything to say to you. I’m busy.”

“Then let me talk. You can just listen. Or not. I just want to say what I have to say.”

“Whatever…” she waved a hand at him as she turned back to her table after righting the tray and it’s contents, “Talk all you want,” she knew she would listen, but that didn’t mean she had to respond.

“Haldisa, I am sorry for what I said to you before. You were right when you said that I thought you were too good for me before. I rightly believed you were. You are young, smart, kind, and you do not seem to care what people think of you. You are very confident. Any man would be lucky to have your attention. I felt guilty, because you deserved a man that could give you a proper life,” he ignored the small huff she gave as she leaned back over to study her rock, “But you were wrong when you said that I think I am too good for you now. I do not think that at all, Hal. You intimidate me.”

She found that hard to believe, “Right. Little me intimidating you.”

“I do not understand.”

“Johann, you’re a power medium. You have amazing skills and knowledge. And now, now you’re the goddamn Hulk. What in the world do you have to be intimidated of?” she shook her head.

“People keep saying ‘Hulk’. I do not know what that means.”

“It just means you’re big and strong. Comic book stuff.”

“Oh…” he wasn’t sure if he liked that or not, though it was certainly better than Ghostman, “Anyway, you are intimidating to me. I mean it. You are nothing like the women I grew up around. Nor anything like my former wife. You are so different. So are Kate and Liz. Nothing like what I am used to.”

“Then why ask them out, but not even talk to me?” she snipped.

Johann wrung his hands a bit, “It is difficult to say.”

She turned to face him finally, folded her arms across her chest and leaned back against the table, “Try.”

Johann once again got confirmation that she was not the kind of woman that his wife had been. She was vocal and confident. He remembered saying that she had cried about him. It didn’t seem like her to cry, but he also didn’t see her as a liar, “Well, uh…”

Hal felt a small pang of guilt as she watched him. Even in his new, superhuman form; he was still the same. The new strength he’d gained and the likeliness that this was the best shape he’d ever been in hadn’t really changed him when it came down to it. Just the way he stood told her that he was still the same man.

“I like you, Haldisa. A lot more than I feel I should. It is not like I do not like Liz or Kate, but it feels different. Does that make sense?

“It does,” she didn’t understand it completely, but she understood well enough, “Johann, if you want to ask me out, then do it. Or don’t do it. I don’t care.”

Johann wanted her to care. He wanted to feel sure of the answer she’d give him. He expected Kate and Liz to turn him down. He worked close to them and he was sure that he wasn’t either of their type. He knew Hal had liked him, or at least she had. He wanted to be sure of what to expect her answer to be. Even her way of telling him to just do it diminished his confidence a little, “I...I would like to have dinner with you. Would you like to have dinner with me?” he finally got it out.

Hal was, a little, surprised that he’d actually done it. Her knee jerk reaction was to tell him no. She managed to push back that feeling and actually give it real thought, “Where do you want to go?” she wasn’t sure if he knew the town at all or not.

“Ah, actually, I do not think I can leave the base. They still have not updated my file for this,” he motioned to his body.

“Really?” that was surprising, “They do like to drag their asses…”

“Yes, it would seem that way.”

She smiled a little at him. It was a little strange to see him like this, but still hear his soft manner of speaking. It was kind of sweet. The whole burly man being a teddy bear thing, “We don’t have to go to town. We could just stay at the base,” which wasn’t very date like, but that didn’t really matter to her.

Johann would have preferred to go to town. He was actually rather eager to do so. Since joining the BPRD, he had mostly stayed inside. He didn’t like the thought of people staring at him the way he had been. Now, however, he was eager to go out. He even wanted to travel for non-work purposes. Though spending time alone with Hal again seemed just as good right now, “I would like that.”

“Me too. We’ll just grab something from the mess hall and go to one of the office rooms or something.”

“That sounds good,” it wasn’t perfect, but it was better than nothing. 

Johann wondered if she would let him kiss her right now. He remembered how she used to kiss the glass bulb that was once his head. She would kiss where his cheeks would be and even where his lips would have been. Would she be willing to do that now?

Judging by the fact that they hadn’t spoken in so long, Johann decided against it. As much as he wanted to, he wasn’t about to make her angry when it seemed like she was forgiving him. Instead, he just reached out and touched her hand a little bit before smiling, “Tomorrow then?”

“Yeah. That’s fine, but, uh, can you not tell anyone?”

It was a strange request. She had never minded before if anyone knew they were alone together. So why now? It was actually a little upsetting, but he was sure she had her reasons for it, “Sure.”

“Thanks. It’s just, well, you know I hate gossip. With how I snapped at you before in front of everyone, they might talk if they saw us together. Plus,” she turned back to her table, pulling away from his hand, “We don’t even know if our little date will go well. We might decide things were better before,” she shrugged.

That was just as discouraging as not being able to go to town and her not caring if he asked her or not. Johann wondered if she was just protecting herself. Telling herself not to care so that it wouldn’t hurt if it didn’t work out. Perhaps he should be doing the same.


	9. Chapter 9

Their ‘date’ together did not end up as harmless as it had started. Things were awkward to begin with. Both feeling out of sorts about the whole thing. However, once they began to finally talk, it got easier as the night progressed.

Hal remembered what she liked so much in Johann and saw that it really was still him inside that body. Part of her even felt a little better about it all. With him back in a body, it meant that he was no use to her family. Granted, her brother and father could never find out about it. They would think that she had some doing in getting him a body.

Johann felt more and more confident as the night went on. Even with his new body, people still made comments about him. Now it was about how he ate and how he looked. Hal didn’t do any of that. She didn’t care that this new body seemed to need more food than anyone else in the base. She didn’t care that he was this ‘hulk’ thing everyone commented about.

By the end of the night, they were doing more than just talking. Against her better judgement about how quick it might have been, she had walked around the table and kissed him. It, reasonably, shocked him. He hadn’t hinted at her for it and they hadn’t mentioned anything of the sort. She just did it. As much as he wanted to experience a woman’s kiss again, he hadn’t been expecting it to happen with her so soon.

One kiss quickly became two and more. When it was all said and done, she was sitting on the edge of the table with her legs hooked on either side of him. Her arms were around his neck and her head tilted back. She hated to admit it, but this was better than before. Feeling his lips on her neck and his hands on her hips. She’d wondered when he first got here how he could enjoy looking at those magazines with no feeling. Now she wondered about it even more. Hal wasn’t so sure she could go her whole life without being touched like this.

“Oh, Johann…” she purred as he covered her neck with kisses.

Johann felt like he was on fire. His whole body felt warm and he wanted to just keep touching her. The fact that she was enjoying it so much just encouraged him. He’d never felt passion like this before in his life. He wondered, briefly, if they were going to make love tonight. He got, what he felt, was his answer.

She pulled away from him a little and reached down to pull the hem of her shirt up. She tugged it over her head and tossed it aside before laying back with a smile on her face on the table, “Oh god, cold,” she squirmed a little against the metal top. She noticed the smile on his face and narrowed her eyes at him, “What?”

“Nothing. You are beautiful,” he said softly and chuckled a little at the blush that formed on her cheeks, “I did not think anything could embarrass you.”

“Yeah, well, being topless on an office table does that to a person.”

“Not completely topless,” he smirked before sliding his hands over her hips and touching her waist a little. She shivered and he slid his fingers over her stomach and up towards her chest. Her breath quickened as he slid his hands over the soft, cloth covered mounds. 

What had lovemaking with his wife been like? Quick, quiet, and not very pleasurable. There was their wedding night, which was purely a formality. Then once or twice a year for the sake of having to do it because everyone said that you had to once in a while. Johann had taken a mistress once. A woman a little younger than his wife. The lovemaking with that woman had been quick, quiet, and only mildly pleasant. Neither woman had really wanted him. His wife for formalities and his mistress for money.

Haldisa wanted him.

“Johann…” she purred his name as he shifted further between her legs.

He wondered if they should move to his room. He wasn’t unwilling to do have his way with her on the table, but it would probably be more comfortable for her on his bed, “Do you want to do this here?”

“Only if you want to,” she reached up and ran her fingers along his cheek, “I don’t care where we are. Just that it’s you,” and she meant it.

That was all he needed to hear about it. His hands slid back down from her breasts to her waist. He started working the button and zipper on her pants. He couldn’t imagine a better first time for his new body. He wondered, briefly, how it was going to feel for her. Johann would by lying if he said he hadn’t continued to look at those girly magazines since getting his new body. He’d done what any man would do. Johann was no expert, but he felt that the size of his body was very well proportioned. 

“Hal…” he groaned a little as she sat up and her hands started to work at his pants as his were hers. It felt nice to feel her hands like that. 

His hand shot back from her waist as he felt something vibrate. She twitched suddenly at the sensation, “My phone…”

He chuckled a little. He hadn’t been expecting that to happen, “Who is it?”

She pulled the small device free and looked at it, “Kate.”

Johann’s face fell a little. Work. They were so close right now, “What...what does she want?”

Hal lifted a finger to her lips for him to quiet as she answered, “Yeah, Kate. What do you need?...uh-huh...alright. Five minutes. I’ll be right there.”

Johann sighed and hung his head a little as she started to scoot away from him and slide off the table, “Do you have to?”

She started fixing her pants and then searching for her tossed shirt. She smiled at him and chuckled a bit, “It’s alright. We have plenty of time.”

“I know. It is just a little…”

“Frustrating?” she smiled again before standing on her toes to kiss his lips lightly.

Johann slipped his arms around her waist and pulled her close to kiss her again, “Yes.”

She squirmed her way free and pulled her shirt back on, “We’ll try again tomorrow.”

“What does Kate need?”

“New resident,” to which Johann perked an eyebrow, “Not an agent. Wendigo. Abe says he’s special.”

Johann supposed that if she had to be called away for something, at least it was some sort of large, killing creature. He would have felt more upset if Kate just wanted coffee and Hal agreed to it, “Need help?”

“No. Just some paperwork, well, a lot of paperwork actually,” her main job was artifacts, but she actually did a lot around the base, “Plus, you might want to sit here and cool off a little bit.”

“Huh?”

Hal smirked and ran her hand along his inner thigh, moving it up a little, but not getting to the main point, “Just a little guess.”

It was his turn to blush and he leaned over to kiss her cheek lightly, “Tomorrow?”

“Most definitely.”


	10. Chapter 10

Johann felt restless. Work bored him and he wanted more and more to be able to do the things he wanted. The Wendigo had taken a lot of time and work for everyone and the ‘Frog’ war was still going on. The Bureau was still dragging on getting his information updated, so he still couldn’t leave the base. Well, he could leave, but it would take getting Kate to let him back on. She was already onto him about being behind on his paperwork. She wouldn’t be happy if she left and she had to come get him from the checkpoint later.

Hal wasn’t even a good enough distraction for him. She had been, at first. After their first night getting interrupted, she had met him again the next night and they picked up again. This time, in his room. It was more comfortable. They weren’t even in the bed, but he had her back against the door and was kissing her from the moment she walked in. He pulled one of her legs up to his hip and she pushed up with the other foot to cling around his waist as they kissed. Johann cupped her backside as he started to carry her to the bed.

Then that damn phone went off again. 

His this time. Abe wanted him down in the loading area. They needed his strength to move the Wendigo cage.

The next night wasn’t any better. He didn’t even get his lips on her neck when the phone rang. It was for her this time. 

The night after that was even worse. They weren’t even in the bedroom.

After that, they almost got through it all the way. She was on his bed. Moaning and panting as he kissed her neck and bare shoulders. Her shirt and bra discarded. His shirt gone too. He was in the middle of shifting his weight to get at her pants when the phone buzzed this time.

That was nearly two weeks ago. Since then, they hadn’t been alone for a moment. The most he saw of her was a brief passing in the halls. They were able to sneak a few small kisses, but nothing more than that.

Johann was getting bored on his own. He wanted to go out, eat, drink, and feel a woman against him. He hadn’t seen Haldisa in two days, not even in passing. He had work to do, but none of it felt important. What felt important was living his new life. He’d only come to the BPRD because he had nowhere else to go. He had skills that were of use to them and he had no purpose for his own life anymore.

Not anymore. He needed to be able to do the things that anyone else could. He had use and purpose beyond the Bureau now. In the spring, he was going to go to Ahornboden. Till then, he wanted to do what he could. Being trapped in here wasn’t living. He was a human man again, not some freakshow.

That was why he broke base rules and left. He got a jeep and headed down the mountain to the town. He turned off his cell phone and decided to just enjoy his night. Be damned if Kate had to come down and get him from the checkpoint in the morning. He only intended on having a few drinks and hanging out with people who didn’t know anything about him. He knew that he and Hal would find a way to make it work eventually, so he didn’t think he would care about other women in town.

He was wrong. A few drinks into his new body that had never ingested alcohol and the flirting of two women in the bar and he was theirs. He couldn’t even remember their names after a few hours of drinking. Tiffany and Amber or Britany and Jennifer or he didn’t know. He told them his name was Arnold. They liked his accent and they didn’t have phones that went off the moment he wrapped his arms around them. 

Before Johann (Arnold) realized it, he was laying in a bed with two girls kissing at his neck and stroking his chest. Hal didn’t enter his mind once as he had his way with the both of them. It felt amazing to have women wanting him this way. To be able to feel their bodies. To have them so wanting and willing. He’d only come close to this with Haldisa, but finally having it happen made him feel more alive than anything else had so far.

It was well past midnight and early in the morning when he finally came stumbling out of the random house they had gone to. He climbed into the jeep with a yawn and turned his phone back on. It buzzed with nearly sixty missed calls, a full text message box, and a full voicemail box. All were from Kate, Abe, and Hal. All within minutes of each other, only stopping about an hour ago.

He called Kate back as he was driving up the mountain and found himself stopped at the checkpoint. The men weren’t going to let him through without validation. The sounds he got from the other end of the phone were not what he was expecting. There was shouting, fire alarms, a few gunshots, and Kate screaming at people, “Kate?”

“Where the hell have you been!?” she screamed back at him, “Get your ass here now!”

“Kate, I…”

“No excuses! The wendigo is loose!”

“Kate they won’t let me through,” he tried to explain.

“If your ass isn’t up here in ten minutes, I’m killing you myself, Johann!”

The line went dead and he looked over at the checkpoint men. They heard the commotion over the phone and weren’t willing to stand in the way of Kate’s wrath. They let Johann through without a bit more resistance.

By the time he made it up the mountain road and back into the base, he could tell that something was wrong. One of the doors to the loading dock was ripped open wide. There were trails of blood in the snow leading towards the wooded area. Footprints showed that people were following. Yet he could still hear gunfire and fighting going on inside.

Not knowing which way to go, he headed inside to find Kate. What he found was a large, blood red creature. It almost looked like a jaguar, but it was much larger and deformed. It’s mouth didn’t just open to long, sharp teeth, but it’s teeth even extended down it’s neck. It was taller than himself and it was about to lunge at Kate. He saw Abe laying unconscious on the floor and Kate was trying to tend to him.

Johann ran at the creature and threw his fist into it’s face. The large thing flew into the wall, “I am very sorry to be so late, Katherine. The weather is terrible,” he joked a little.

The blond woman looked like, for a moment, that she was going to lunge at him, but instead her eyes widened. The beast regained itself and jumped at him, swiping and slashing open his shirt and catching his abdomen a bit. It started to run and Johann grabbed it by the tail. He swung it into the wall. Blood poured from it’s mouth and Johann slammed his booted foot down on one of it’s legs. 

The creature howled, but was hardly finished. He swiped at Johann, catching his face this time. The hulking man dove forward and smashed it not only into the wall this time, but through it. They both tumbled into the next room, smashing everything in sight as he wrapped his arm around it’s neck and squeezed tight.

It’s body went limp and Johann stood up, “There. I believe we are done. Yes?” he even smiled a little as he turned his back to it and started out the hole he’d made in the wall.

The creature was faster than him though. It jumped to it’s feet and caught him good this time. It’s wide mouth caught his throat and chin. He screamed as he felt the muscle, skin, and bones being ripped away from his body. Pain filled his body and his eyes went a little hazy. 

He heard Kate screaming his name and even felt himself slump to the floor. Everything went black then.

When he woke, he realized that he was no longer in human form. He could see in all directions. He couldn’t feel anything, not even his own body. He couldn’t feel his joints. He couldn’t smell anything. 

He was in his containment suit again. All he had to do was look to the side and he saw the mangled body that had been his. All he could to was sit in the chair in front of it and stare. Kate tried to comfort him, but it just made him angry as she said that she knew how he must feel, “You know nothing!” he snapped.

“Johann, this is no time to be feeling like this. We need to focus. I need you to focus. We have bodies and we need you to speak to them. We need to know what they saw,” it was easy to tell she was forcing herself to stay calm.

“I vas alive again. I could take hot showers. I could eat and smell. I could touch a voman’s skin and know what it felt like. Vomen vanted me to touch them...and now…” he looked back at the mangled, bloodied body.

“Johann…” she started, but he climbed up from the chair and started towards the other room.

“I vas going to go to Ahornboden...I vanted to take Haldisa vith me…” he shook his head a little.

“Johann…” she said softly, “...Hal’s missing…” After Johann finally called, she had sent Hal out to get him. She hadn’t returned yet.

“Vhat?”

“I’m sorry. I wanted to tell you sooner. We have men out looking for her. I sent her to get you when you called. She hasn’t come back yet. The Wendigo is out there, but it shouldn’t attack her. Abe says that he’s a unique one. That he’ll only attack those who have murder in their hearts.”

Johann wanted to run out and join the search, but he knew he was of better use here, “Should I...should I go help?”

“Johann, we need you here. We need you in there,” she pointed to the room where the bodies were, “They are the only bodies we found that are not employees. We need to know who they are and where they came from. One of them blew up Daimio’s room.”

Johann rung his hose like hands together. He felt guilty. Hal had been sent out to the checkpoint to get him. She had no way of knowing the guards would let him through. Now she was missing. All because he’d gone to town. If he had a stomach anymore, he was sure he would be getting sick. He’d been out fooling around with other girls while the people he cared for were getting killed. If Hal was dead, it would be all his fault.

“Please, Johann, pull it together. Hal is a tough girl. She was raised in these mountains. She’ll be fine,” Kate tried to reassure him.”

“...yes…” he said meekly before pushing through the doors and leaving Kate to stand there with his dead body.


	11. Chapter 11

Hal smiled as she knocked on Johann’s bedroom door. Kate promised her the night off. No work. No phone calls. No anything. She was looking forward to it. Much like Johann, she was starting to get restless. The night that they finally managed to make it to his bed, she was ready. She wanted to go through with it. Hal had already decided that it was him that she wanted to be with. She was even willing to say that she was in love with him.

So when he didn’t answer her knocking and she opened the door to find the room empty, she felt her heart sink a little. After asking around for a while, since he didn’t seem to be answering his phone, she found out that he’d taken one of the jeeps and gone down the mountain.

Instead of getting a jeep and following after, she decided to just go to bed. Part of her wanted to be angry, but another part kept telling herself that he needed this. A night out and a little drinking. He was a good guy and she couldn’t see him getting into any kind of trouble. They’d go out together another time.

It was around midnight when the alarms went off. The whole base was up in arms. The Wendigo had got loose and had killed someone. That meant that the spirit had passed on and Abe said that it would still be weak, that they just had to find it.

Part of her team found it quickly in the loading area. It was trying to claw it’s way through the door. It didn’t look weakened though. It looked exactly the same as it had before. The tall creature covered in snow white fur was the same one that had been here the whole time. Blood stained around it’s mouth and down it’s chest.

“Don’t shoot it!” Kate yelled, “Bullets don’t affect it! Were the hell are those flamethrowers!? Where the hell is Johann?!”

“I’ve been trying to call him!” Hal snapped back.

“So have I! Christ! Shit!” Kate swore as the creature managed to get through the door and took off running, “Dammit! Track it! Don’t let it get away!”

The team took off out into the snow storm while Kate and Hal headed back towards the main area of the base to get the other agents. They were both thrown back by the force of an explosion. Abe was shooting at something. It wasn’t the Wendigo. It was nearly as tall, but instead of snow white, it was blood red.

“What the hell is that?” she muttered.

“Don’t know! Came out of Daimio’s room though!” Abe shouted over the sound of gunfire.

“This place is going to hell in a fucking handbasket!” Kate snapped as she opened fire on the creature.

“Yelling isn’t going to help!” Hal snapped back.

“Jesus fucking christ!” Kate shouted at the red beast turned on them finally. It tore through two agents even under full fire. Nothing they did seemed to help it, “What the hell are we going to do?! Do you think it killed those guys and not the Wendigo?”

“It had to. If Daryl had done it, then the Wendigo spirit would have passed on and it would weaken.”

“Sure as hell didn’t look weak to me. I think we better run!” Hal suggested and took off as the red beast prepared to pounce them.

The remaining members started off down the halls. The beast behind them tearing the floor up with it’s claws as it chased them. Abe even threw a grenade at it, but all the explosions seemed to do was anger it more.

Kate’s phone rang and Hal caught Johann’s name being shouted, “Johann?!”

“Bastard is at the damn checkpoint! I’m going to kill him when he gets up here!”

“We need him. We need his strength against this thing,” Abe was the logical one at the moment.

“Hal! Go get him!” Kate rushed her and pushed her hard towards a door. She went stumbling into it and through. The stairs on the other side were not pleasant to come in contact with, but she took it as she tumbled down them. She was going to be sore in the morning, but it was better than being dead.

The creature continued to chase Abe and Kate. It was likely very animal minded and possibly didn’t even notice that she’d been booted from the group. 

Once she was sure it wasn’t coming after her, she climbed to her feet, groaning in pain, and took off down the rest of the stairs. She rushed out the nearest door and started down the snow covered road. It was common to snow like this in the mountains, but there hadn’t been a cloud in the sky all day. Already, the snow was nearly a foot and a half deep.

She wondered if she should go back for a jeep and decided that it would be for the best. It would take a while to get to the loading area, but it would take longer without the jeep to get to the checkpoint. 

She trudged through the snow and saw footprints of the men who had gone after the Wendigo. Tonight was turning out to be hell. In all her years here, she’d never seen something like this happen. It wasn’t till the special talent agents came here that things started happening. Not till she met Johann that things started changing.

She thought about her father. About her family. What would her father say when she told him that she was in love with Johann. There were no doubts in her mind that he was going to be upset. More so when she told him that she wanted nothing more to do with them. Being with Johann was more important than continuing this horrible family they had created. They were killers and they deserved punishment. Hal knew her punishment would come one day, but she felt like she needed to start repenting for it now.

The snow crunched behind her and she drew her gun, “Who’s there?” she called out as she turned, but there was nothing. Just snow. 

No. Not just snow. Eyes. Big, round, yellow eyes. Then a scream and a flash of red.

“Oh god…” she muttered and fired off a shot. She knew that it wouldn’t hurt the Wendigo, but it was a reflex.

It charged her and she took off running towards the trees. How had the team not noticed it rounding back towards the base? Maybe they were all dead. No, then the Wendigo would have passed on to one of them. Wasn’t that how it worked? That’s what Abe said.

She continued to take shots at it over her shoulder as she ran. She knew it wouldn’t hurt the thing, but she hoped someone would hear it.

It caught up to her and tackled her to the snowy ground. Hal covered her face and tried to curl up as it climbed atop her. She could smell death on it’s breath as it sniffed her, “Oh god…” she stammered out, “Please don’t kill me…” she felt tears welling up in her eyes. 

One of her hands was still clasped around the gun and, against her better judgement, she shot it at the Wendigo. It struck him right in the face, but did no damage. All it seemed to do was anger the creature. It swung one of it’s clawed hands down at her and she screamed as it tore through her jacket and shirt, digging into her stomach.

Abe had said that the Wendigo preferred to eat humans and if that human happened to have a murderous soul that it could become one too. Haldisa didn’t want to become one of these things. She knew what she had done in her life. She would rather become it’s food than become one of them, “Ah!” she screamed again as it sank its teeth into her shoulder.

Hal knew she wasn’t strong enough to kill it on her own, but she wasn’t going to give up without a fight. She threw her legs up and managed to unbalance it. Bleeding and in pain, she started crawling through the snow.

It grabbed one of her ankles and hauled her up into the air. She hung dangling in it’s face. As a last resort, she threw her head forward and smacked into its. It dropped her an roared in anger. She took the chance to get to her feet and run. She held a hand against the bit mark and the other across her stomach.

Snow flew up behind her as the beast started to chase again. This time, she made it to the trees and started to scale one of them. Climbing a tree was nothing to her, but it hurt like hell with the injuries she had. She climbed as high as she could go. She had no doubts that the Wendigo could climb and still get her, but she felt out of options.

The only thing that seemed to save her was the sight of headlights in the distance. It caught the creature’s attention and it ran off in the other direction, “Help!” she screamed out, but she couldn’t even hear her own voice over the sound of the snow and wind.

Blood continued to pour from the wound on her neck and shoulder. She tried to climb back down the tree, but couldn’t keep a grip with her frozen fingers. They slipped and she thudded to the ground hard. She wanted to move, but that didn’t seem like an option right now. All of her limbs felt cold and tired.

The snow actually felt good. It was soft and it felt good against her hot face. It made her feel sleepy. It was fluffy and soft. It felt like Johann’s containment suit body. She smiled a little as she closed her eyes and remembered the first night she stayed in his room. He’d been so nervous and unsure about all of it. It was obvious that he wasn’t used to the attention.

Haldisa wished she could have seen him tonight. She wanted to tell him that she loved him. She also wanted to tell him the truth about her family. She wanted to ask him to forgive her for what she had planned to do with him. For the first time in her life, she felt close to someone. She’d been on this base her entire life and never really cared about anyone. Johann was different. Not just because he’d been disembodied, but she felt like he had so much to offer. He might have thought that she was too good for him, but she felt it was the other way around.

She felt tired. Part of her hoped she died here, that way no one would ever find out. Another part of her prayed she didn’t become a wendigo. Was that how it worked? Hal wasn’t entirely sure.

“Johann…” she muttered his name softly before letting the sound of the snow falling fade away.


	12. Chapter 12

Johann was sitting in the room with his mangled body. He felt such anger and hate running through him. What he had learned from the spirits of the two bodies they found was that the creature who had ‘killed’ him was in fact Captain Daimio.

The man, for years, had been possessed by the spirit of a violent Jaguar spirit. One of the spirits was one of Daimio’s former teammates who had been there in an attempt to kill Daimio. He was the one who had set the bomb that blew up Daimio’s room. If the bomb were to fail, the spirit, named Chavas, had brought a special knife with him. Currently, the strangely shaped and old in appearance knife was in Johann’s hose like hands. The ghostman had found it on Chavas’ body after the man explained that it was likely the only thing that could kill the Jaguar.

The other body was a Chinaman who referred to himself as that. He said that since Daimio realized what he had become, he had requested the Chinaman’s services in helping keep it at bay. Once a month, he would come and give treatment to Daimio. More recently, Daimio was needing him more and more. He’d been called tonight, but by the time he arrived, Daimio wasn’t in his room. Before he could leave, the room exploded.

Johann’s body was being disposed of today. It wasn’t being given a burial. Kate had asked if he wanted it to have one, but he declined. Johann wasn’t dead. Just the body. The last thing he needed was a grave for it. He wanted it cremated and gone forever. 

He hid the knife under the chair cushion as he heard the door opening behind him. Probably the men come to take the body. It was a heavy load and would take quite a few men to do it. It killed him that he couldn’t even help move his own body because of how weak his containment suit was. 

Despite his ability to see in all directions at once, he was completely focused on the body in front of him. So it surprised him greatly when it wasn’t the men to move the body. Instead it was Haldisa. She was a mess. Johann knew that she had been attacked by the Wendigo. It had thrashed her about pretty badly and left her in the snow. Abe’s team had found her on their way back from searching for the snow beast. She’d been in a pile of bloody snow under a tree about a half mile from the base. Her stomach was nearly torn open and her shoulder was nearly torn off and she was unconscious.

Abe said that Daryl the Wendigo wouldn’t normally attack humans because of the nature of his originally innocent soul. For it to attack Haldisa, Abe said that she must have provoked him or something. Even a regular Wendigo, while they preferred to eat humans, generally only ate and killed murderous souls. 

Johann had not gone to see her in the infirmary, despite Kate’s insistence that he do so. It had only been a few days, so he was surprised that she was out already. 

She was sitting in a wheelchair in a pair of loose shorts and a loose, gray tanktop. Her hair was pulled back messily in a short ponytail. Her face had several small bruises and cuts. He could see the bandages wrapping around her chest and abdomen. There was a splint running down one of her legs, but he could tell it wasn’t broken as badly as it could have been considering what she’d been through. She had a small, sympathetic smile on her face as she wheeled herself next to his chair. Not the usual bright one he liked so much.

“Please do not say you are sorry about this, Haldisa. I have heard that enough from people.”

She shook her head and reached out to set a hand on his. It angered him that he couldn’t feel it. Just a week ago he had pressed her up against the shelving in a supply closet and slid his hands up the back of her shirt. Feeling his way along her warm and semi-toned back. Feeling one of her legs rub up against his. Feeling her pulse under his lips as he kissed her throat. It had been a short session and interrupted by their phones. Now, however, he couldn’t feel even the touch of her fingertips on his hand.

“I wasn’t going to say sorry, Johann. I just wanted to be here with you. Kate told me you’ve been in here everyday and that they are taking it away today. So I told those pissy doctors that they could kiss my ass, because I wanted to be down here with you.”

Had the situation been a little different, Johann would have appreciated what she was doing, but he couldn’t, “You should go back up to the infirmary, Haldisa. You have terribly injuries.”

“Just a scratch or two,” she said with a smile before leaning her head over to rest on his shoulder. He thought about feeling her laying in bed with him. Her bare body pressed up against him. His fingers working to open her pants as she panted into his ear. Her soft fingers digging into his shoulders. But now he couldn’t even feel her hair as it brushed against the glass bulb that was his head, “You shouldn’t be alone.”

Johann felt guilt. Guilt and anger. It was all he could feel, “I am going to find Daimio and kill him one day…” his voice was low. He meant it. He wanted to find the man and make him pay for what he’d done. Not just for what had been done to his body, but for all the lies he’d told. For pretending to be their friend and comrade. For pretending to lead them through battle while hiding the fact that he was just as dangerous as the creatures they were fighting.

“Johann, don’t say that. I know you’re upset, but we need to find Daimio and figure out a way to get that jaguar thing outta him.”

“Nein! He needs to pay for vhat he’s done!”

She sat up in her chair and bit her lower lip a little, “Okay,” she wasn’t going to fight with him about it right now, “Johann, I know you’re upset right now, but there’s something I want to tell you…”

“Vhat is it?”

Hal sat up and took a few deep breaths, “I wanted to tell you something the night everything happened. I went to see you, but you had already gone down the mountain. I wanted to tell you something. Johann, I…I lov…”

His anger was for Daimio, but the guilt was all Haldisa’s. Kate had yelled at him for hours after they found Hal in the snow. He’d assumed at first that she had been part of the Wendigo search team, but Kate informed him (rather loudly), that she had been sent out to get him from the checkpoint. If he hadn’t broke protocol and left the base to go on his little drunken adventure, Haldisa wouldn’t have been hurt. He would have been here for everything and he might have even still had his body. Hal was nearly killed because of him. Kate said he was lucky that no reports were being filed on him for it and the only reason that none were was because they had bigger things to deal with.

“Haldisa, I need to tell you something first,” he cut her off. Johann could tell by the look on her face what it was she wanted to say. He couldn’t let her do it. Not till he explained himself to her, “I vent down to the village on my own that night.”

“Johann, I know that. I don’t care. I lo…”

He stopped her again, “Please. Let me finish,” he knew he couldn’t feel her, but he reached out to hold her hands. It took a lot of effort to be able to force his hose like fingers to bend, but he did it, “If I had not gone, you vould not have been hurt,” maybe a little wounded from the indoor fighting, but not near as bad, “I vanted nothing more than to be vith you, Haldisa. I vas…I vas frustrated. For veeks, vee had tried to be together. I vanted to be vith you. I vanted to take you to Ahornboden this spring. I thought you vould like it,” she smiled softly at him, “But I…” he didn’t know how else to word it, “I vas veak, Haldisa. I vas planning on just a few drinks. It has been so long since I have tasted vines.”

“I don’t think you’re going to find many high quality wines around here, Johann,” she said with a small chuckle.

“No. No I did not, but I drank anyvay. Vhatever I could find,” he needed to just come out and say it, “Haldisa, I slept vith another voman. Two...actually…” he watched her straighten up a little and look down at her lap, “I cannot even remember their names. I just needed to feel, Haldisa. I did not vant you to say you vere sorry when you came in, because I am the one that should be saying it to you. It is because I left and vas with those vomen that you were hurt.”

She surprised him by wrapping moving her chair in front of him and leaning forward to hug him. She wrapped her arms around his bag like body and hugged him tight, “Johann, we all make mistakes. We all have lapses in judgements. We did our best to try to be together and it didn’t work, so it’s only natural that it happened. Johann, I don’t blame you at all and you shouldn’t blame yourself. All that matters is that we both survived and we can continue where we left off,” or at least they could once she could walk on both her legs again.

He reached up and pulled her arms free, “No, Haldisa, vee cannot. My body is gone. Vee cannot just continue on. It does not vork that vay.”

“Of course it does, Johann. I love you,” she finally got it out, “I’ve never loved anyone before. I loved you before you got that body and I loved you when you had it and I still love you now that it’s gone.”

“It vill not vork, Haldisa,” it killed him to do this. It was why he had been avoiding her. The longer he stayed away from her, the longer he could hold off ending it with her. Johann wanted it in the back of his mind that she was still there with him for as long as he could have it, “I am sorry. I vanted it to vork, but…” he motioned to the mutilated body laying in front of them, “I cannot.”

“Johann,” her eyes were filling up with tears, “Please don’t say that. I love you. I really do. You have no idea how big a deal that is for me to admit. I couldn’t even tell my own parents that I loved them,” that sort of intimacy didn’t come natural to her, “But I love you. You. Body or not. Don’t you remember us just laying in your bed together and talking? That was wonderful. I want to keep doing that with you, Johann,” it had gone on like that till Johann had thrown her out, “Why can’t we just do that? What was wrong with that?”

“It vas not right then and it is not right now. I vill not put you through that.”

“Put me through that? What the hell are you talking about, Johann? This is what I want. Just us. There’s nothing to put me through.”

“Vee cannot be like that. It is not normal.”

“What the fuck around here is normal? You think I want normal? Johann, I was raised around this stuff. It’s been a part of my life since I was born. My mother gave birth on the third floor because a gremlin knocked out the security system and all the doors were on lockdown because of it. I was born during a gremlin incident. Do you seriously care if I have a ‘normal’ relationship? I love you, Johann. I don’t care ‘what’ you are, I just love you. Please don’t do this…”

He didn’t want to. He wanted to hold her again. He wanted to spend nights staring at the ceiling of his bedroom because she was sleeping against him. At the same time, he couldn’t bare the thought of going through that again, “But I do not love you.”

“So what? Was it just about sex for you? You can’t have sex with me, so you don’t want to be around me? Is that all you really care about? You spend time with Kate and Liz, but you can’t spend time with me? You told me before that you felt intimidated by me and that you felt like you weren’t good enough for me…”

“I lied. You are right. All I cared for was sleeping vith you. Since I could not do that vith you before, I told you to leave. I cannot now, so that is that. Kate and Liz are my superior and equal. You are neither of those,” it killed him to say these things, but he knew that the only way Hal was going to accept this was through cruelty. He’d used it many times before in an effort to help people move on from their dead loved ones. Sometimes a rough hand was what was needed. If being cruel to her now spared her pain in the future, he would do it. Because Johann did love her,.

Tears rolled down her face. Johann had never seen anything make her cry like that before, “I…I…” she didn’t seem to know what to say. Her eyes were glued to the floor, “But I…I love you, Johann. You’re supposed to say it back. You’re supposed to…” she started breathing heavier, “I was going to…going to do so much for you…”

“Vell, you cannot do vhat it is I vant from you.”

“Johann, please…” she reached out and grabbed his glass bulb head. It was impossible for her to force him to look her in the eye, which likely worked to his advantage, “Johann, please, please…don’t do this. I love you. I care about you. You’re the only guy I’ve ever felt like this with before.”

“I cannot make myself feel something for you that I do not just to make you feel better. It is not right to lead you on anymore.”

“If…” she could barely talk, “If…if…you still…had…” she was choking between words, “...had your body and we…we had sex…”

“Haldisa, you vere the only voman in the building that vould have me, but you are not the only voman in the vorld that vould. If I had not gone down to the bar then, I vould had eventually.”

He could tell by the look on her face that she wanted to scream at him and hit him. She didn’t though. She let her hands fall to her sides and slowly wheeled herself back from him, “I wish…I wish I had known you felt that way. If sex was all you had wanted, maybe I would have known better than to let myself feel anything for you,” she looked up at him and gave him a weak smile, “If all you wanted was sex, you should have just said so. Sex for the sake of sex is normal around here,” he watched her eyes go vacant before lowering to the floor. She started to make her way from the room and Johann started to reach out for her, but she yanked her arm away, “Don’t you dare touch me.”

Even without a body, Johann managed to shiver. Her voice was so heavy and dark, “Haldisa…” he said her name softly.

Before leaving the room, she looked back at him, “You know what, Johann, I’m glad Daimio wrecked that body. The less guys we have like you in the world, the better. You’re better off as the freak that you are. At least this way, you can be of some use to people.”

He knew better than to feel slighted by her words. After what he’d said to her and put her through, it was the least he deserved. He wasn’t angry at her. In fact, it made him angrier at Daimio. Daimio took away his body. His second chance at life. His chance at a life with real love. Hal had loved him. He’d suspected so and felt it himself towards her. Now he had to push her away again. He refused to let her settle for him and for half a relationship.

Johann knew she deserved better than that. Better than him.


	13. Chapter 13

“Oh, Daddy, he lied to me. He lied,” Hal huffed her words out between sobs. She was laid over the large table in the basement of her father’s home. The room was dark save for a few candles here and there. She had been staying here for several days and spent most of it in tears in the bed she’d spent her teenage years sleeping in, “He didn’t care about me at all. I was so stupid.”

“Yeah, ya were,” her brother hissed and laughed.

“Shut up, Kasper!” she snapped before burying her head back into the crook of her arm and sobbing more.

Haldisa had spent her time in the infirmary recovering and crying the same as she was now. For the first few weeks, she would only eat when her body absolutely needed it. She wouldn’t talk to anybody. All she did was lay in her hospital bed and cry till she fell asleep. 

After her recovery wasn’t much better. She spent her time sleeping and crying then too. Kate tried to convince her into going back to the artifacts lab, but she wouldn’t. She just wanted to be left alone. It got to the point with her bunkmate that the other girl requested a room change so she wouldn’t have to deal with the constant crying.

Hal felt stupid. She had been ready to abandon her family and everything she was raised to believe in for him. Even after he lost his body again, she was still willing to stay with him. She had wanted to be with him. A lifetime of laying in a bed together and talking didn’t really seem so bad. As much as she’d enjoyed feeling the big, strong hands of his new body on her own; Hal had realized quickly that she would have been happy with his cold, metal fingertips brushing her arm as they laid together.

He’d mentioned Ahornboden, though she knew now that it had just been some ploy to get her to sleep with him. Hal had wanted to travel with him as well. Germany. France. Italy. Russia. Egypt. Japan. Australia. She wanted to spend her time with him in all of those places. Holding his hand as they traveled around the cities she’d only ever looked at in books. Visiting the ruins that she only got to look at the stones from with him at her side. Doing all the things her family had prevented her from doing and doing them with him. 

“Mein Engel, für diesen Geist fiel , und Sie bekommen, was Sie von ihm verdient. Ich habe Sie gewarnt.”

“Daddy, please don’t say that,” it had been a long time since she called him ‘daddy’. It was usually just ‘father’, “I didn’t mean to fall for him. That’s never happened before. You know that. I’ve always done good. I didn’t deserve this…It hurts so much, Daddy. Is this how it felt when Mama left?”

The corpse of a man moved slowly in his seat. A decrepit hand reached out and rested on the back of her head, “Ja. Es brach mir das Herz. Es war ein trauriger Tag für alle von uns, wenn sie versuchte, zu verlassen. Mein Engel , es tut mir leid Sie hatten Ihr Herz gebrochen. Es ist nicht etwas , das ich je für Sie gesucht.”

“I know, Daddy. You always told me to keep my heart cold and hard. To never feel for anyone but my family. I’m sorry I tried to leave you and Kasper for him. I was foolish. You forgive me, Daddy, don’t you? I’ll never do it again. I swear. Please don’t forsake me like you had to do Mama. Please, Daddy.”

“You don’t deserve to be forgiven,” her brother hissed, “Who knows what you would have told that Ghost. You would have sold us out to him and the Bureau.”

“Out! Jetzt!” her father snapped and her brother scrambled from the table and up the stairs.

“Daddy, I mean it. I’ll work harder now than ever before. I never realized how important family was till now. I realize now that the only people I can count on are you and Kasper. It was stupid of me to think I could have any kind of a life without you, Daddy. Family is more important than anything.”

“Es tut mir leid Sie auf die harte Tour lernen, Engel.”

She sobbed as she thought about Johann, “It was hard, Daddy. I really loved him. I never want to feel that way again.”

“Sie werden nie wieder, mein Engel,” he stroked her hair softly, “Papa wird niemals zulassen, dass es geschehen.”

“I know you won’t, Daddy. I know you’ll take care of me,” she sat up and wiped at her eyes.

Before coming here, Kate had recommended that she take some time off from the Bureau. After all, it wasn’t like she had been focusing much for almost three months anyway. Hal agreed and the first place she went was the cheap motel near the bar. She’d planned on spending her whole time there. Drinking seemed like a good thing to do. Then one night in the bar, she overheard two girls talking about some man named Arnold. Everyone in the bar talked him up and commented about how they wondered where he was. Apparently the man had come through one night, bought drinks all night for everyone, and gave the two women a rather good night. 

Hal realized after hearing a description of this Arnold, she knew it was Johann’s new body. Those were the girls he’d admitted to sleeping with. The girls who had made him realize that he could in fact do better than her. The women who would have likely found eventually anyway. 

After that, she came crawling back to her father and brother.

“Sie wissen, was Sie tun müssen . Ich sollte nicht zu sagen.”

He was right. She did know what she had to do, “I know, Daddy.”

“Sag es. Ich möchte sicherstellen, dass Sie vollständig zu verstehen. Ich will es aus deinem Mund hören.”

It was a punishment for her. He wanted to hear her say it and explain it, “We need his soul. I was wrong for trying to seduce him. That works on the other men, but I should have anticipated that it wouldn’t work on a man without a body,” a little flirting and kissing was all it took with the other men, “I just need to take it from him. Daddy, I need to ask your permission to let me do something I’ve never done before,” she looked at the monster that was her father, “No more restrictions. I need to be able to do whatever necessary to get him here. I know you never wanted me to leave, but Kate trusts me. If I want to go on missions with teams, she’ll let me. I can get close to Johann that way. There are many more chances for his suit to get damaged outside the base. Will you let me, Daddy? Let me be a real agent for the Bureau?”

There was nothing more than the sound of the creature’s oxygen tank and respirator for several long minutes, “Ja.”

“Thank you, Daddy. I won’t disappoint you again. He broke my heart and now I’m going to break him. Just like with you and Mama.”

“Mein Engel,” he reached out and stroked her cheek.

“I’m going to go have some wine. Kasper can fix dinner tonight,” it would be the first time in years she ate the food her brother made. She’d held firm for a long time that it wasn’t good enough and that was something they needed to move past eating. Right now, however, she felt like she needed it. 

“Kasper! Ich möchte das Essen fertig!” her father shouted.

Even though she had made the decision to reinvolve herself in her family life, she still lowered her head back down to her arm and fought back anymore tears that threatened to come up. She didn’t want to cry about Johann anymore. She didn’t want to feel anything anymore. 

Eating seemed like a good idea till her brother finally came down the stairs with the bowls. She stared at the bowl. The candle lighting in the room didn’t do much to make it look good. It was almost like a stew. The soup part looked dark brown in color till she lifted the spoon. The silver of the spoon and the candle flicker showed that it was actually a deep red in color and it was very thick. She stared at it as she brought it closer to her lips. At the last moment, she set it back in the bowl.

Her brother and father were eating away and she was trying. She scooped up another spoonful. There was a piece of meat in this one. She stared at it again. It looked almost like chicken or pork. She told herself it was chicken as she brought it up, but once again, she set it back down, “I…I’m sorry. I can’t. I thought I could...but...not yet…”

Hal pushed out from the table and ignored her brother as she darted up the stairs and through the small house till she got to her childhood room. She locked herself in and sighed as she dropped down on the bed. 

The room was the same as it had been when she was sixteen and moved into her first room at the Bureau. Legally, they weren’t supposed to take her till she was eighteen, but her family pull helped get her an unpaid intern position early. 

The walls were brown paneling and simple, like the rest of the house. There was a hole in the panel by the window from where she’d tried to sneak out one night and accidentally kicked the wall on her way out. Hanging above the window was a string of colorful beads with little styrofoam, halloween decoration skulls between random batches of beads. There was a cheap bookshelf filled with books about myths and ancient cultures across from the bed. A vanity desk, that was nearly falling apart, next to the shelf with costume jewelry spread out on it, along with a thin layer of dust on all of it.

Her bed was a little on the small side, but anything bigger would have taken up the whole room. The metal creaked as she laid on it and the mattress was old and sank. The pillows were flat. But the blanket was nice. It was a big, thick comforter. Fluffy and soft. It was cleaner than a lot of the other things in the room. Even though Kasper never touched her other things, he had been good about taking care of her blanket. It was the blanket her mother had bought her and it was not the sort of things people would have thought she had. It was bright pink with multi-colored hearts all over it. A joke gift, but still the last.

It swallowed up the bed with it’s size and she felt like she was swimming in it. If she could have got away with having it in her room at the Bureau, she would have.

Hal buried herself in the big blanket and screamed into her pillow. She hated herself and she hated Johann. It felt impossible that she had let herself have such feelings for someone. It was well known in her mind that feelings of ‘love’ could only end that way. Her mother had done it to her father. Her father had drilled it into the both of them that the only people that could love you were those biologically related to you. 

He was right and she was going to make Johann pay for having made her feel the way he had.


	14. Chapter 14

The soft knock on his door was a little surprising. If Kate, Abe, Roger, or Liz needed him, they would usually just call his phone. Johann didn’t get a lot of private visitors. It wasn’t that he didn’t get along with many of the others here, but he just didn’t have a lot in common with them. 

He made his way over to the door and opened it. He nearly jumped back in surprise, “Haldisa…”

She was standing just outside his door with a stern look on her face, “Hello, Johann.”

“H-hal…” he had thought about her a lot. He had heard about how she’d refused to eat in the infirmary and just spent her time crying. How she continued to cry and holed herself up in her room till Kate finally made her take a personal leave. He hated himself for all of it. He kept thinking back to how her face looked covered in tears as he brushed off her confession of love. How heartbroken she’d looked. Johann had seen that look many times as he helped loved ones reconnect across the spiritual plane for one last meeting. He’d never thought that he would be the cause of that look on someones face.

She rolled her eyes and pushed past him and into the room. She sat down in his chair and crossed her legs and arms, “Listen, we need to talk. Don’t worry, I’m not going to yell this time,” unlike every other time they fought.

“Talk...ah...alright,” he closed the door slowly, but stayed near it. He had thought about this. About what was going to happen if they had to talk. Johann couldn’t go back on what he’d said to her before. As far as she knew, he didn’t love her and he’d wanted nothing but sex from her. That her love wasn’t important to him. So long as he stuck to that, he would be okay. Not happy, but he would survive, “Vould you like to start?”

“Yes. I would,” she tensed and took a deep breath, “Some things around here are going to change. I’ve spoken with Kate and we both agreed that it was time for a change for me. That my duties with the Bureau expand. She says that the best thing that she ever did was make the choice to step out from behind her desk work and get field experience. I think I should too. She agrees.”

“I do not see that being a bad idea for anyone.”

“It’s not. I’ve never left Colorado before, but I’ve always wanted to.”

Johann wrung his hands nervously, as he tended to do, “I do not understand vhy this involves me?”

“Because, Johann, there’s a chance that we would end up on a team together at some point. It might be a little awkward if we have this conversation in front of other teammates instead of in private. Plus, the longer we hold off on it, the more likely the chance that I’ll yell again.”

“Vee do not vant that…” he said softly. Hal knew how to get to him when she yelled. It was like when Kate yelled. It was a little scary the things that came out. 

“Anyway…I’m ashamed of and disappointed in myself for how I let myself feel about you. Both the ‘love’ and the crying. After all, it was silly to think that a man who has already lived a ‘proper’ life would have any interest in doing it over again,” it pained him to hear her say that. He wanted to tell her that she was wrong and that he had never got to experience love in his first life and he wanted it now, “I understand that. After all, before you even showed up, I knew exactly how you felt. Sex is sex. I fell in…” she made a disgusted face, “...love...and now I’m over it. Time to move on. So, we’re just comrades now. Not friends, just comrades.”

“Not friends…” he didn’t like hearing that. Johann knew it had been too much to hope for. Since Kate had not laid into him about Hal, he assumed that she hadn’t told anyone about their last conversation. It wasn’t exactly a secret that they had been seeing each other in some capacity and he figured everyone just assumed they broke up without knowing any of the specific details.

“I didn’t have real friends before you and I don’t need them now. Comrades are all anyone should have. I’ve been around here long enough to know that. I had a lapse in judgement before and it won’t be happening again. I just wanted to make sure you understood that if we do have an assignment together, that I’m going to treat you the way I always should have.”

Johann nodded a little, “Ja, I understand. I shall do the same.”

“I don’t care what you do, Johann…and that’s kind of the point, now isn’t it?” she gave him a cold smirk.

“Alright then…” he wasn’t really sure what to say about it, “I suppose vee can both hope it does not happen any time soon.”

“Right, about that, it’s part of the reason I’m here. Kate figured we should have this talk first. She told me a few days ago, but I thought it could wait. Apparently not. We’re going to the Scottish Highlands.”

“Oh! Vhat for?”

“Cats.”

“Cats?”

“Yes, Johann, cats. Specifically the fairy creature known as the Cat Sith. I sent you an email with the details before I came here,” she turned in his chair and started clicking around on his computer.

“That’s mine and it’s private...” he started.

But she cut him off, “Scared I’ll see your porn? I don’t care, Johann. Look at all the pictures you want,” she opened his email and pulled up the one she’d sent, “Also, this computer is technically Bureau property, so you shouldn’t be calling it private. The IT guys can see everything on it and trust me, they like looking at the stuff you ‘Special Talent’ agents look at.”

Johann hadn’t realized that, but it made sense and he was glad to know it now, “So vhat exactly is going on?”

“We’re being sent to a small village where there have been reports of black cats everywhere. The village has a history of witches, but the last coven was wiped out in the late 1700s by a spell known as the Black Wave. Some little witch got angry because a witch from that coven stole the man she was supposed to marry. So she wiped them all out.”

“That seems...excessive.”

“You haven’t met with many witches, have you?”

“Have you?”

She was silent for a moment, “No, but I make it a point to read about them. Her coven was shamed because the man she thought she loved turned out to just be using her and then abandoned her. Back when this happened, the least she could do was burn their coven to the ground,” they were both quiet for several moments. Johann watched her looked down at the desk for a minute before continuing, “Anyway, the area was notorious for witches and the story of the Cat Sith originated there.”

“Vhat exactly is a Cat Sith?”

“Cat Sith is…” she clicked on a link in the email and brought up an old fashion drawing of a large black cat standing on it’s hind paws with a frightful look on it’s face. There was a spot of white fur in the center of it’s chest, “...is thought to be a fairy creature that takes the form of a large black cat. Not just large like that stray one someone keeps letting in the base, but like German Shepherd big.”

“Mein Gott, that’s a large cat.”

“And dangerous. It’s not a fairy, it’s a witch.”

“Really?”

“Yes. The idea that it’s a fairy creature comes from the fact that it was believed that it stole souls and people back then were idiots. They do steal souls though and that’s part of the problem going on right now. The Cat Sith is really a witch. A very powerful one. There hasn’t been one reported in over 300 years. The Cat Sith is a witch who can turn herself into the form of a cat nine times.”

“Oh, the myth of cats having nine lives.”

“Yea, that. The story is that when a witch turns into her Cat Sith form for the ninth time, she cannot turn back and becomes a regular black cat. Then a new Cat Sith can come along.”

“So they think there is a new Cat Sith for the first time in 300 years?”

“New? Not really. The last reported one was from that coven that was wiped out. The people are gone, but a lot of the families there held onto a lot of their artifacts. They sent over some papers and we translated them. One was a journal and it was written by the daughter of one of the main families in the coven. The Blackstocks.”

Johann leaned over her shoulder a little as she clicked on file containing photos of the journal pages, “Vhat language is that?”

“Nothing still ‘live’ anymore. It felt like forever to get it translated. We still don’t know what half of it says. What we did get though is that her grandmother was some kind of High Witch or whatever they’re called. She was the Cat Sith back then. This girl kept records of every time her grandmother used her Cat Sith form. There are only eight accounts.”

“She vould have died in that Black Vave, no?”

“Not necessarily. It’s a hard spell and the girl could have easily messed it up. It’s supposed to be a black fire that only burns people and doesn’t go out till the intended victims are dead. She targeted the whole coven, but there is always a chance that this Cat Sith could have saved herself.”

“Vhat has been going on to make them think the Cat Sith is back?”

“Cats. Lots of black cats running around the village,” she looked over at him and frowned, “Could you not stand that close?”

“Hn?” Johann realized that he was hovering over her shoulder. His head barely half a foot from hers. One of his hands resting on her opposite shoulder, “Sorry. So sorry,” he apologized before standing back, “Go on about the Cat Sith.”

“Thank you,” she huffed, “As I was saying, a lot of black cats. As anyone knows, black cats get a bad reputation.”

“But they are really kind creatures?”

“No. They are evil and dangerous. Except that stray, but I think that’s because we’re all over feeding it. These cats are the souls of the former Cat Sith. Because of the immense power being in the Cat Sith form gives, many witches were willing to use all nine forms and stay as a cat. But the power cannot be passed till that ninth form is taken. So if she had died in the Black Wave, then there wouldn’t be reports of it now.”

“Unless her granddaughter did not know of the ninth transformation.”

“And that is why we’re going to investigate. There is always a lot of black cats around when the Cat Sith is. It’s the souls of the previous ones being drawn to the new one. Or someone’s feeding all the stray cats. That happens too. But if there is a witch there and she is using a Cat Sith form, we need to take care of it. Witches are dangerous and not just any can turn into a Cat Sith. They steal souls, they eat children, kidnap princesses, summon demons, build candy houses in the forests...the whole nine yards.”

“Vhen do vee leave?”

“Tomorrow afternoon. Kate is putting you in charge,” she said the last part with a bit of upset in her voice.

“Really? Me?”

“Yeah, well, I’ve been with the Bureau longer, but it’s my first field mission. So it can’t be me. The others are good for fighting, but not so good on the researching part. Abe is off investigating a nest of frogs. Liz is still out of it. And Kate can’t very well go with her job. So that leaves you. Last choice, no other options.”

That hurt, but Johann didn’t comment on it, “Great. It vill be my first lead.”

“Yeah, well, we’ll have Agent Tasso with us once we get over there. He’d probably be better off taking over. He’s been in Scotland for years.”

“Tasso…right…” he nodded a little. It seemed natural that they would meet up with an agent more familiar with the area.

“I’m sure he has a team too. The Bureau as a facility there, after all. Not at large as the ones here, but I think they have a hundred or so agents.”

Johann didn’t feel so great about him taking the lead anymore. Of course the agents over there were going to be taking over. It only made sense since they knew the area and people better, “I see…”

Hal sighed softly as she got up from the chair, “Feel free to read the rest of the file. I sent a lot of information. Good thing you don’t need to sleep anymore, Scarecrow,” she teased. It wasn’t the kind of teasing she used to do though. This was a shot at him and losing his body. He reminded himself that ‘comrades’ didn’t have to get along. 

Johann wouldn’t allow himself to sink to that level. He felt she deserved it as well. If taking shots at him made her feel better for even a little bit, he was going to allow it without complaint, “You should get some rest yourself.”

“Yeah…Don’t tell me what to do with myself. I can take care of myself and I know when I need rest…Whatever…” she shrugged before leaving, him wincing a little as she slammed the door shut.

“This vill help her feel better,” he told himself. 

He also told himself several times over the night while reviewing the case information that she would see their break up as a good thing during the trip. If it went smoothly and they could even find a little time for her to sightsee, she might realize how good it was for her to be without him. That she could have a life and a better one. Already, she was taking opportunities she never had before.

This would be good for her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Google keeps wanting to change Cat Sith to Cait Sith and show me pictures of the Final Fantasy character. >.


	15. Chapter 15

It was the first time she’d been on an plane. Granted, it wasn’t the nice kind with window seats and such. It was more of the military carrier type. The only windows to see out of were the ones running along the top side of the plane. Hal had no problem standing on the back edge of the seat to see out of till Johann was forced to ask her to come down. She’d thought about telling him to piss off, but she knew it was an order from her team leader and so did as she was requested. 

She wished she could watch out the window for the whole flight. The others in the group got a laugh out of calling her a mountain bumpkin, which Johann did not scold them for. Though he seemed to take delight in scolding her for the colorful language that shot out at them. If he wanted to be like that, she could take it and dish it too, “Whatever you want, Ghostman.”

“It’s Agent Kraus while we’re on this, Agent Schwarz. Best to keep it professional, no, Comrade?”

She narrowed her eyes at him from her seat across the plane, “Yeah, Comrade,” she stressed the word with a sneer. It still bothered her that he had no facial expressions for her to judge how it made him feel. His body language didn’t do so well strapped into the seat of the plane. She didn’t want it to bother her, but it was. She knew for a fact that she could get to him the way she needed to. It was just going to be a little difficult. It didn’t matter how many times she told herself to just get him alone while on a mission, she still wanted him to suffer first.

Haldisa wished her first plane ride could have been more eventful, but it wasn’t. It was mostly her sitting in silence. The other men, while she knew their names and had met them in passing, she wasn’t too familiar with them. The only person she’d been on daily talking terms with at any point was Johann. She wasn’t about to try and strike up a friendly conversation with him, so that left her sitting quietly and listening to the sounds of the plane. 

By the time it was over, she was in a foul mood. She wanted off the plane and into a bed. She didn’t care if it was some cheap hotel bed or a crappy bed in the Scotland Bureau facility. Just so long as it had a pillow and a blanket. Hell, she could do without those at this point. Hal wasn’t sure why she thought being on a plane would be so great. Next time, she was bringing a book and her MP3 player.

All of those feelings of being tired and boredom were whipped out of her as the loading hatch opened and that first gust of wind came rushing in. It smelled fresh, crisp, and clean. Just like the air from the mountain in Colorado. It wasn’t the crisp smell of snow that hit her though. It was grassy and a little salty. 

“Are you alright, Agent Schwarz?”

Johann’s voice snapped her back to reality. She was standing there on the door to the hatch, just staring off. The beautiful sight of the grass covered mountain in front of her ruined by him intruding on her thoughts, “I’m fine,” she snapped and threw her elbow back into his stomach. It didn’t matter that he couldn’t feel it, it was the action that counted, “I told you before, don’t stand so close to me, Comrade.”

His glass head leaned over her shoulder and she huffed softly as he snipped back, “You do not have the accent to say that vord vith feeling. Perhaps you should leave the strong vords to someone who does, ne, Comrade?”

She rolled her eyes and started off to join the group. Scotland was beautiful. The mountain reminded her of home, but the environment was different. It was green and blue. The sunsetting didn’t make it dark immediately like it did in the mountain from home. It lit up the whole sky with amazing colors. It was like a painting. Hal had seen plenty of pictures of the Scotland Highlands, but she realized that no picture was good enough. 

For a moment, it even made her forget about everything. All she could think about was how often she’d get this feeling of new wonder now that she was a field agent. Would she eventually become jaded about it? Truthfully, she knew she would, but she could hold hope for right now that she’d feel this excited every time.

“Welcome to Scotland, Agent Schwarz,” the new voice brought her back again and she fought to snap at it.

“Oh, Agent Tasso, thank you,” she realized it wasn’t Johann this time and even managed a content smile.

“Please, call me Sal,” the man smiled back, though his was warmer than hers was, “So you’re the newbie on the team, huh?”

Hal didn’t like being called a newbie. She’d never really been one before, “Yeah, but I’ve been with the Bureau most of my life, so not really too much of a newbie. Not like the guys who still don’t believe in ghosts even after seeing him,” she pointed up to Johann, who was walking a few feet in front of them.

“Not a ghost,” Johann commented.

“Wen interessiert das?” she rolled her eyes before looking back over at Tasso. 

Haldisa had read Tasso’s file before the trip. Sal Tasso was a man in his late thirties, tall, and in good shape. He’d been on assignment with both Hellboy and Abe in the past. His track record was in line for someone with his experience. He’d dealt with all sorts of nasties here in Scotland since the Bureau sent him here to help set up the facility, but he’d also dealt with zombies and demons all over the place, “First field work then, huh?”

“Yes. After a rather eye opening incident and a little encouragement from Kate, I decided it was time to get some hands on experience. Step out from behind my desk and take a few hits at those ‘bumps in the night’ myself.”

“Good for you. Always good to see desk agents taking a chance. Maybe one of you will get sent out here and I can go home,” he smirked, “I’m starting to think that I’m going to be here till I die.”

“Well it’s not going to be me, even if it’s beautiful here,” at least what’s she’d seen so far, “But I still have a lot more to see.”

“I understand that. If you’d like, if we get some down time, I can show you around a little. There isn’t much to see in the way of towns up here in the Highlands, but the landscape is more than good enough. Lots of sheep.”

Hal smiled. Not that cold, content smile she’d been wearing for months now, but a real smile. The kind it used to be hard to see her without, “I’d like that,” he smiled back and that made her feel good. Hal had learned her lesson once before about getting close to people, but it’s wasn’t like she was going to get friendly with him beyond sightseeing and work.

“Having a nice chat?” she looked over to see that Johann had fallen back in the group to stand beside her.

“As a matter of fact, we are, _Comrade_ ,” she said lowly, “Sal here is going to show me around if we have time.”

Johann’s head turned away and he didn’t answer right away, “Oh, vell, there usually isn’t. You’ll learn that.”

“Johann’s right,” Sal stated, “In fact, we’re a little behind schedule. It’s going to be hard enough getting the village to let us all in during the day, even harder at night and with…”

“The Ghostman?” Hal didn’t get to say anymore. She felt Johann’s hand grab her arm and he tugged her aside sharply, “Hey. What’s wrong with you?” she snapped. Johann’s fingers didn’t allow him to grip hard onto things. It was one of the disadvantages of his suit and the lack of knuckles. She easily yanked her arm free as the group continued to walk ahead of them.

“The jokes stop now. I am heading up this team and I do not need anymore comments from you. You are an adult, Haldisa. This is your job. Try to behave like it. No more Ghostman, no more Comrade, no more jokes. If you cannot do that, then perhaps it should be said to Kate that you are not able to separate personal issues from vork. Verstanden?”

As always, it was impossible to get a good judge on exactly where his emotional range was without facial features, but Hal understood, “Yeah...Yeah, I get it. I’m sorry,” she wondered if he realized how badly he’d affected her, “I’ll be more professional. I promise,” she reminded herself that despite what it was she really wanted, this was a matter of work right now. Nothing she wanted would be obtained if she didn’t straighten up.

“I am sorry too,” he said softly. It always amazed her when he was able to change the tone of his voice when he lacked vocal cords. He reached up and touched her cheek lightly, “Perhaps it vould help if vee talked about it…”

Hal swatted his hand away, “I don’t think that would be a good idea, Johann. I spent too much time thinking about you and I’d rather not waste anymore time on it. You said plenty before and...and I’ll get over it.”

“Very vell. If that is your vish.”

“It is. Maybe I’ll feel different about it one day, but I don’t see that happening any time soon,” maybe once she had him at her mercy, she’d let it all out before taking away his second life. 

“I really am sorry I lead you on the vay I did. I did not realize how serious it had become,” she felt herself getting angry as he spoke. How could he think that she wasn’t serious with him? She’d tried everything she could to get the free time so they could be together. How heartless had he been not to notice how she’d felt about him? Why did he feel that it was okay to just sleep with her till someone better came along? Sex could just be sex, but only if he’d just said that to begin with.

“Johann, I said I don’t want to talk about it. If you keep bringing it up, it’s just going to make me upset. Lets just do our job and get out of here.”

He nodded, “Very vell. Perhaps I shall mention to Kate that it vould be best if vee vere not on many teams together.”

She shook her head, “That’s not necessary. I can handle it. I think it would be easier the more we worked together.”

“If that is vhat you vould like…”

“It is.”

He nodded again, “Vee should catch up vith the others.”


End file.
